Returning To Rally: Lia Block battles for a podium spot at Sno*Drift 2026!

In the snow, mixed conditions, at night. It's certainly a rally that you need to just finish. It's the first time a woman's ever led an ARA round. That's kind of sad. Alex is out of the car. What is going on? Good morning. We are here at Testing for Snowdrift Rally 2026. It was very, very cold early this morning, about five degrees. That is a Rally 3 behind us, but not my mom's Rally 3 that I raced at Boone. Same exact car, just not owned by Blockhouse. I've never done a snow rally. To make it even worse, we are not allowed to run studs. We are stuck with two kind of tire choices here, a snow tire and an ice tire, and no in-between. Another cool thing about Snowdrift is the first full day is all in the dark. We start Friday at 6 p.m. and end at around 12 p.m. In the snow, mixed conditions, at night. It's certainly a rally that you need to just finish. That is our plan. This rally is also special because it is my first ever rally with a different Gelsimino in my passenger seat, Mr. Alex Gelsimino. He was my dad's co-driver for many, many years. He sat with my mom in 2023 when Rhiannon sat with me and we won the two-wheel drive championship. It's kind of funny that Ree's back with Travis now, and I'm with Alex, and we're actually competing against each other. Travis may or may not have bet me a dollar for the overall. I don't know how I feel about that, but I guess we'll see. Hello everyone, we are here at Park Exposé for day one. It is about to get dark because we don't start the first stage until 6 p.m., so I'm freezing. Should be a good loop of stages. We finished recce yesterday, did video recce this morning, so feeling prepared. Yeah, we'll just have to see how the second loop goes. It may be really icy, but I'm freezing. Leah coming in. She's got the window down ready for me. Leah, how are you feeling about day one? Sketchy, to say the least. Yeah, for sure, the conditions definitely changed a lot compared to the first run. The previous stage, there was a spectator point, like a hairpin left, and the braking was fine, but as soon as I went to go turn in, I just understeered straight, so I had to turn around. End of day one, Friday stages. It's like 11 30 at night. My first time ever racing in the snow. Our first pass was really nice. We had lots of, you know, fresh snow on the surface, and then second pass got really, really sketchy. Sitting second in class, third overall, and a big learning experience, and yes, now I'm tired. Let's go. Yeah, let's go to bed. First in class. Or kind of afternoon, I don't know. I'm freezing. We finished quite late last night. I was half asleep on the way home. I don't know what Travis is doing. Snow drift rally. Ready to get started. We will be second on the road today because Patrick had a gearbox failure at the end of the last stage. Ready to get this started. Ready to get in the car. Yeah, we'll see how the day goes. Eight challenging stages today. Leah and I are currently sitting second overall. Unfortunately, Pat Gruszka is not restarting today. We were third last night, so but yeah, looking forward to driving, gain more experience, and see all the fans in the stages. We have four stages left, about 25 miles, so I think it's going to be a matter of trying to manage, even if it means that we have to do a couple of stages in road mode without boost, without any pressure or anything, just to clear the stage. So, fingers crossed, that's all we can do. I see deceptive tug. Keep left four minus. Oh, that's bad. It's really icy. Yep, it might be okay. Maybe not, no. We believe it's the first time a woman's ever led an ARA round. How's that feel? Well, that's kind of sad, but I mean, it feels really good. Yeah. Like, this is the first time I've ever led a round of ARA, and obviously the first time I've ever been in a competitive car to do that, especially at this type of rally. So, we'll just have to see you at the finish, and then I'll tell you more about it. Sounds good. Well, keep it going. It's good. Glad you broke the ice on the woman leading. Good luck. We'll see you later. Thank you. And four plus right. Push! What happened, Alex? Push! Alex is out of the car, pushing it over the crest. What is going on? She's finished. She'll need to get towed back. Were you across the finish line when it happened? No. Just before. So, yeah, we pushed across. I mean, we had people push us across. So, I mean, technically, we finished. Thank you. We have to get towed back out now, hopefully. Okay. I just can't believe it. The timing belt snapped the two corners from the end. As soon as we broke for the virtual chicane, it snapped, warning on the dash, and that's it. She didn't want to start anymore. So, the first corner was downhill, but the last two were uphill. So, we were just going to get her out of the way, and there was no room for two cars. It seems she was late to the final control by four minutes, which would then promote Mark to first and drop her to second. All this is being worked out right now. We're still going to wait some more. So, we are back in Salt Lake City now. Obviously, Snowdrift finished yesterday. Yeah, I mean, we were trading times back and forth with Travis. We did one stage, and within two tenths, within a second, like, it was going really, really well, and then Travis put it in his stomach, and I'm glad they got to keep running, but for us, it meant we were leading, and with two stages left, the last corner was breaking down for a left-hander, and everything just, like, seized. The car stalled, and it would not start again, and thankfully, it was a downhill right there, so we tried to just dump the clutch and see if it restarted. Like, nothing was working, so we tried to use that momentum to coast, but there was still right-left up to the finish, and we had to get some spectators help, especially across the line, and unfortunately, that means we had outside assistance when we were in control. It would have been a different situation if the road would have been flat or would have been downhill. We would have been disqualified, but unfortunately, the rules are the rules, and all we wanted to do was finish, which we did, and I'd much rather, you know, get DQ'd than DNF regroup, and just reflect on what happened. Obviously, I was, I don't know, we were training Travis, beating him, so we'll see for the next one, and just keep working. Well, at least I know I can drop a rally car still.