Hoonigan Racing once again dominated the 100 Acre Wood as Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino take their seventh win at the event, giving them a 7 of 8 record in the 100 Acre Wood.
From the first stage, Block was in the lead at the second round of the Rally American National Championship. The Subaru team of David Higgins and Craig Drew were hot on the Hoonigan team for most of the race, losing some ground after a flat in Stage 5, but coming back to put themselves in a close second – 20.5 seconds close. The Subaru team may have been able to overtake Block on the second day, but an engine failure took them out of the race and gave Hoonigan the sure win.
Block had props for the Subaru team, though. “I felt as if I had very few mistakes this weekend. Unfortunately, my top competition fell out on day two and I was able to extend my lead. It took some pressure off, which I don’t like, because I like to push hard. Instead, I was able to just enjoy these roads and put on a good show for the fans.”
Rockstar Energy moved up for the second place, but also lost out after their engine overheated in the late stages. This gave the second place back to Subaru, with their second time, Travis Pastrana and Chrissie Beavis taking the second spot on the podium. Pastrana raced with a repaired broken leg and recently dislocated ankle.
Third place went to FY Racing and drivers Adam Yeoman and Jordan Schulze.
In Super Production (SP), 2013 Rookie of the Year recipient, Nick Roberts, stood on top of the SP Class podium for only the second time in his short rally career. Roberts and his co-driver, Rhianon Gelsomino, capitalized on the retirement of other top SP contenders to find themselves first in class and fourth place overall.
The SP team expected to win, after dominating the Sno*Drift rally, were out of the race due to a wreck during practice. That crash can be viewed on Vimeo at this link.
Finally, the 2WD category win went to Ford’s Andrew Comrie-Picard and Ole Holter after a harrowing race in which Will Hudson and Brian Szykowny were leading until a damaging jump took their car out of the race. Second place went to Scion Racing’s Matthew Johnson and Jeremy Wimpey instead, with brothers Troy and Jeremy Miller bringing in third.
Team Honda Research’s James Robinson and James Guitar won their second consecutive B-SPEC Class in a Honda Fit against Tracy Gardiner and Tabitha Lohr in their Toyota Yaris.
