To Be a New Rally America Champion...

So there will be a new season champion in Rally America for the first time since '05 when Patrick Richard took the overall win. '06-'09 saw Travis Pastrana take the championship in sometimes close, sometimes not-so-close fashion and he is currently running 2nd in the overall standings coming into this weekend's Oregon Trail Rally...

But he won't be there...

I said last year after the New England Forest Rally that Pastrana would be getting bored of the lack of competition in Rally America and whether that is true or not, the fact remains that Pastrana is choosing to leave the series at perhaps the critical point of the season to head to Australia in order to participate in the Nitro Circus, motorcycle stunt shows there.

His absence will make it realistically impossible for him to win the season championship and puts Antoine L'Estage and his '09 Mitsu Evo X in command and if he can follow through, would result in the first non-Subaru to win the Rally America series (Richard in '05 drove an Impreza STi as did Pastrana in his championship years). Furthermore it makes the small team of Bill Bacon and his '06 Mitsu Evo IX poised to move into 2nd place on the season.

Ken Block, with one win and two DNFs in his new Ford under his belt sits back in fifth overall and ready to leapfrog the highest ranked remaining Subaru of Dave Mirra should he bobble just a bit. One year ago the Impreza's of Pastrana, Block and Mirra were filling the top five results of each event...a year later?? Not so much.

Subaru Rally Team USA driver Dave Mirra will be the lone team entry in this weekend's 2010 Oregon Trail Rally based in and around Portland, Oregon. A previously scheduled engagement with the Nitro Circus Live tour in Australia precludes Subaru driver Travis Pastrana, the 4-time defending Rally America National Champion, from competing at the Oregon Trail Rally. Mirra currently holds 4th Overall in the 2010 Rally America National Championship standings while teammate Pastrana sits in 2nd having won the last round of the series, the Olympus Rally, late last month. Pastrana will headline Nitro Circus Live in Australia this month, a series of stadium based events that will feature action sports stars performing never before seen tricks and stunts in a spectacular live action format.