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At the end of Friday’s session Block had been slowed down by the foggy night stages and was trailing behind Higgins by 13.4 seconds. L’Estage was firmly in third place 2 minutes 2.9 seconds off Higgins. The Relentless Impreza was third in open lights, RTK maintained a quick pace and snagged first. LSPR’s reputation as the “oldest and toughest” proved its merit with several competitors not being able to finish on Friday. Pictured above is Houghton natives Adam Yeoman and Jordan Shulze in their open class STi, unfortunately they suffered an engine failure in stage 6 and were not able to finish the rally. FY Racing also owns The Continental Fire Co., the club where they host the awesome pre and post-race parties!
Saturday morning was frosty and cold, but relatively dry compared to the day before. Block was brushing victory with his fingertips, but it wasn’t quite within his reach yet. Throughout the day he would slowly shave time off the gap between himself and Higgins.
Dylan and Elliot usually try and rile up the spectators as they come by, whether it's flashing their lights or blasting the horn. They also practice safe driving by signaling their turns.
As the day progressed it steadily got warmer and the cloud cover began to lift, making the stages a bit less slippery for the teams. After stage 11 Block had nearly halved the difference between himself and Higgins, but towards the end of stage 12 Block went wide into a narrowing corner and caught a clump of dirt on the outside that would send him catapulting through the trees. Although the car was wrecked, Block and co-driver Alex Gelsomino were able to walk away from the accident unharmed. This would give Higgins the overall win for the series, and hand the manufacturers title to Subaru.
With the battle between Higgins and Block having come to a dramatic finish, Antoine L’Estage was left to take second place at LSPR in the open class, unable to contest Higgins for first with more than 3 minutes between the two of them.
This corner on one of the final stages was very loose, and would develop a worsening trench with each passing car. The AWD guys were able to come in fast and use their momentum to swim through the loose dirt without getting stuck, whereas all the FWD drivers seemed to come in a bit slower and take a very tight line to avoid the loose terrain entirely.
Dylan came into the corner flat out, then with a slight flick scrubbed off speed on entry and put his skid plates to the test scrambling through the trench.
After the race was over we met up with the guys from Relentless at the awards dinner. Congratulations to Dylan, Elliot, and team Relentless for taking home some hardware for Saturday’s second place class finish, coming in behind their friends Samir and Rachelle of Rally Team Kaltak.
After the awards were all handed out it was time to head over to The Continental Fire Co. for the after party, which was crazy awesome. And then the after after party, which was even more awesome. And then walking for miles down a country highway back to our cabin at 4AM, which wasn’t very awesome at all.
For a full list of results from LSPR please check out their website by clicking here.
See more about the film Easier Said Than Done by clicking here.
