Omani rally driver Hamed Al-Wahaibi held a superb class lead and fourth overall after Saturday’s second day of the Oregon Trail Rally in the Golendale area of neighbouring Washington State.
The 53-year-old and New Zealand co-driver Tony Sircombe found a strong rhythm and set a string of fourth-fastest times behind the three more powerful Open class cars of leader Brandon Semenuk, stunt legend Ken Block and Travis Pastrana. Al-Wahaibi leads nearest rival Javier Castro by 2min 15.2sec going into the final day.
His pace in the McKenna Motorsport Ford Fiesta R5 has already drawn the attention of local media and the support of spectators on his first appearance at the ARA National Championship round.
It all went very well and I am very pleased that we were fast in the R5. Travis Pastrana came along and complimented us on our performance. The super special at the start was good and the stages on Saturday were beautiful to drive on.
Hamed Al-Wahaibi
They were fast and flowing and really enjoyable. The scenery is amazing. The people are fantastic. The level of competition has been very good. What an experience and I will definitely come back again. I tried in the morning to see how close we could get to the Open Class cars, but they are WRC cars in effect. They were flying.
Hamed Al-Wahaibi
Hamed has been driving really well and the car has been doing everything he wanted it to do. They have been tricky and quite difficult roads and you need confidence in some places. Some sections were very technical and narrow, still high speed but no room for error. We are pleased and we had a little bit of night driving as well. That is something we hadn’t done for a while.
Tony Sircombe
Al-Wahaibi made a strong start to his first American rally, holding fourth overall and the class lead after two runs through a short super special at Portland International Raceway on Friday evening. As Pastrana and Block fought for the lead, Al-Wahaibi shadowed third-placed Semenuk and topped RC2 on debut, 5.4 seconds ahead of rival and well-known British racing driver Kyle Tilley.
He runs the Ford in the USA with logistical support from Asyad Express and Sandan Development LLC. The rally finishes on Sunday with a final loop of gravel stages around Dufur.