Your Suitcase of Courage correspondent was in far off Northern Minnesota this weekend to catch a glimpse of Rally America, the closest thing you'll find to WRC in these United States. Rallying has been around a long time and offers some of the most incredible displays of car control and action anywhere. The WRC is pretty much in a massive slump right now (try finding any coverage whatsoever on American TV, you won't) with only a few manufacturers taking part, but salvation may be coming from precisely the market which has shunned it the most.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that rally cars fit pretty nicely into the bro-bre-ed out extreme sports gnar gnar demographic, and last year ESPN made exactly that connection by including the sport in the holy grail of trucker hat culture, the X-Games. They even had the insight to bring in old yellow teeth himself, Colin McRae, to give it some serious credentials. He instantly become the odds on favorite for the event and although he didn't end up winning he did give the crowd some textbook Scottish car bashing moments. In his final run the notorious car destroyer managed to barrel roll his Subaru WRX STi and continue on to take second place at the finish.
Rally America's most famous, Travis Pastrana chats up the crowd
The glory went to moto-cross sensation Travis Pastrana, fresh off pulling the world's first double back flip in the Moto best trick comp. Rally had finally made a mark on Americans, and DC shoes founder Ken Block only ratcheted up the sports appeal with his insanely ridiculous Subaru huck on Discovery's Stunt Junkies.
This year rally returned to the X-Games and the momentum seems to be
carrying over to the Rally America series. With that in mind I set out
to catch my first glimpse of live rallying. The Ojibwe Forest Rally, a
sort of American version of Rally FInland complete with yumping, deer
strikes, and lots of backwoods locals with unpronounceable Scandinavian
names, started things off with a super-special stage at the Bemidji
Speedway. Usually a dirt oval set up for sprint cars and fender-banging
stock cars, the Speedway had been littered with gates and jumps for the
rally-ers to negotiate.
Cars ran from slowest to fastest, and although the crowd was
undoubtedly waiting to see Pastrana, Block and pals run their factory
Subarus the action leading up to the big dogs was just as exciting.
Everything from a hugely lairy rwd 80's Mustang with dirt tires, to a
Chevy pickup, to the more standard Mitsubishi Evos and Ford Focuses
(Foci?) coated the adoring crowd with inches of fine dirt as they flew
around the course. It was awesome, and it just went to show that its
not about how much technology is in a car, but how well the racing is
set up for the fans.
Pastrana checks out directions to the next stage









