Subaru Rally Team USA driver Travis Pastrana took the win this weekend at the Oregon Trail Rally, and moved into the championship lead.

“It was an amazing rally,” said Pastrana. “That’s three wins and a tree this season – not so bad.”

The defending champion and co-driver Christian Edstrom set a blazing pace to pull into the lead early on Day 2, and held it there to the finish. It’s the third win in four starts for the duo in their Subaru WRX STi.

Second place went to Rockstar Energy’s Tanner Foust and co-driver Chrissie Beavis. The team put in a consistent drive all weekend and were cruising to their second-place finish when they spun out on the final stage and struck a rock with their Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X – almost costing them a position. They managed to hold on, finishing just 3.6 seconds ahead of the Polish team of Andi Mancin and co-driver Maciej Wislawski.

“It was a pretty clean rally the whole way,” said Foust. “Subarus are known for being really tough and I think our Evo X has proven tough this weekend, too. She brought us all the way home after we hit the rock and we’re pretty pleased to get second.”

It was the first U.S. podium for Mancin and Wislawski, who have proven at this event that they can match the pace of Rally America’s top drivers. Mancin said late Sunday that racing with the Jemba system of notes – as is typical in this championship – is something that has taken some getting used to. This is the first full season in the series for the Polish duo, who are accustomed to making their own pace notes from scratch.

“I’m very happy, it’s a very significant result for our team,” said Mancin, who pilots a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX. “These were very difficult stages – but they were beautiful.”

For KAPS Transmissions, this is another strong result and shows the continued performance and reliability of the transmission in the most difficult of conditions.

Race results below:

Sources

http://www.rally-america.com/story.php?article=466

http://rally.subaru.com/