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The ninth running of Rally Colorado, held in the small northwestern Colorado town of Rangely, turned out to be the biggest rally since it became sanctioned by the American Rally Association. Designated as a “Super Regional” event–one of just three in the country–Rally Colorado is just one step below a “National” event like the Oregon Trail or Olympus Rallies.
And like the Oregon Trail, Rally Colorado is one of the few events with vast open terrain where cars can be seen competing for miles by their trails of dust. No forests hiding cars here.
The Western Slope of the Continental Divide does present some unique challenges for competitors, including elevation that changes between 5000 and 7000 feet, blazing temperatures, dusty roads that forced a 2-minute gap between racer start times, and frequent exposure to drop-offs measuring hundreds of feet down.
While some stages have tight corners and rough terrain that slow the cars, like Dragon Trail and Valley of the Gods, others have long, flat-out straights, like Darwin.
And then there’s Earl’s Revenge, which includes crazy jumps and a section near a riverbed that once took a Ford Fiesta named Earl on a 6-mile cruise while waiting to be recovered during a flash flood.
This year, a new, faster and smoother stage called Under the Dragon proved popular, but an hour-long transit back through Utah turned out to be more complicated than expected, as some cars got stuck in a silt bed and needed help from the sweep vehicles to keep going.
There was only one major accident this year: A car rolled into a riverbed, but there were no injuries and the car was recovered.
This is also the second year that Rally Colorado has used the satellite RallySafe system, which tracks all the cars competing and allows competitors to let race control know if they’re okay or need assistance at the click of a button.
Likewise, the rally is one of the only ones that has a Life Flight helicopter stationed on the course if needed.
The majority of entrants are grassroots-level racers, though two big former national champions arrived to test their skills on these technically challenging roads near the Utah border and Dinosaur National Monument.
Travis Pastrana and co-driver Rhianon Gelsomino drove the new Subaru WRX ARA25L (a more affordable rally racer Subaru is developing that’s more closely related to the production WRX), racing in the Limited 4WD class. Ryan Booth had co-driver Andy Hayes, who came off a National overall win in a 2024 Skoda Fabia RS that is also relatively new to them.
Both have won before in Colorado, but Pastrana’s wins were 110 miles east of the event, many years ago when the Colorado Rally was held at the mountain resort in Steamboat Springs.
Driver Jacob and his father/co-driver Michael Despain, local favorites, surprised the factory Subaru team by beating Pastrana on the very first stage in a non-turbo 2001 Subaru Impreza RS by half a second.
Booth and Hayes later took the stage in their WRC-level RC2 Skoda, however, and won all the stages over the two-day rally. The top four teams stayed the same for the rest of the event after 199 got back on track and each team led their own class.
Fourth place overall went to George Plsek and Ole Holter, winning Open 4WD in a 2005 Mitsubishi Evo. They had to keep an eye on a Fiesta and a Golf R that were not far behind in the same class. Like Pastrana, this was Plesk’s first time back in Colorado in many years.
The rest of the competition was fierce and included some unusual cars, like the GRM favorite 1985 Toyota Tercel (featured on this website last year winning Open 2WD with husband-and-wife team Steven and Laura Olona).
Second in the class was James Veatch and Jenna Cooper in their 1992 Lexus SC400, and third was Brian Maskrey in a 1985 Toyota Corolla. While you don’t have to have a 30-year-old car to be in this class, that’s just how it worked out this year.
The final class winner was Chris Miller and Crystina Coats taking Limited 2WD in a 2015 Scion FR-S.
By far one of the most amazing parts of this rally is the support from the local population of Rangely. Only 2500 people live there, and it seemed like everyone turned up for Parc Exposé and the parade through town.
Travis Pastrana and Grand Marshal Paul Gerrard, formerly Top Gear’s “The Stig,” signed autographs for over 2 hours before the 7 p.m. parade.
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And how about some more videos?
The non-turbo Subaru 2.5 RS:
Dash cam footage of several starts from the starting line:
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