Posted Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 10:55pm
Mark Piatkowski has won his first ever American Rally Association presented by DirtFish National championship event as Subaru Motorsports USA’s Brandon Semenuk retired from an eight-and-a-half minute lead with a gearbox problem on the penultimate stage of Sno*Drift Rally.
Semenuk – paired with Takamoto Katsuta’s former World Rally Championship co-driver Keaton Williams for the first time – was the clear favorite for success on the 2022 ARA season opener given team-mate Travis Pastrana is still recovering from his pelvis injury, Ken Block is over in Africa competing and Barry McKenna had to also pull out of the event at the last minute due to work commitments.
And, despite conditions that were more treacherous than usual due to a more prominent layer of ice on the top of the stages, Semenuk stuck to the script on the first day to move nearly five minutes clear of the chasing pack after the six stages.
