The three-time American champion hired a private Škoda and was beaten only by WRC winner Esapekka Lappi
Photography by SRT & Ralli SM
Words by David Evans, DirtFish Head of Media
Ten hours transatlantic made for something of a bleary-eyed transit through Helsinki, but when Brandon Semenuk woke, there was no doubting where he was. Good morning Jyväskylä.
You never forget your first trip to Finland. It’s the sauna in the corner of your hotel room, the midnight sun, pickled herring for breakfast, road signs to Lahti and mile after mile of road-side lupins.
But for a driver, it’s the first time you fly Finnish airspace. A jump is a jump is a jump, but when you send it in Suomi it’s always just that bit more special.
Subaru’s three-time American champ is in town for something different. He’s testing ahead of his competitive debut in Finland.
“I’ve never been here with a bike or a car,” he told DirtFish. “We got to the hotel late, then I woke and it was straight into this super-cool test road close to Jyväskylä. It was crazy, we landed right into the middle of this f****** incredible place! The test place was like the most popular place ever – all the boys had been there. So many pictures of so many iconic drivers, [Craig] Breen had driven there, all the Toyota guys. And there’s all these dudes in the workshop just so stoked on the sport, super-excited about the rally at the weekend.
Semenuk landed in Finland awestruck by what surrounded him
“To arrive straight into an experience like this was such a cool, cool way to start the weekend.”
The weekend was about a private Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 and the SM O.K. Auto-Ralli. Round five of the Finnish Rally Championship included eight stages and 55 miles over Friday evening and Saturday.
Semenuk and co-driver Keaton Williams are no strangers to speed. Anybody who’s won New England (twice) knows what it’s like to pull the big gears between the trees. But that event hasn’t been included in the ARA National Championship for the last two years. Prolonged periods on the rev limiter at the pre-event test got the Canadian’s eye in for what was to come, with average speeds of 83mph on some of stages around Kuovola.
After a super-busy time with his work as a Trek factory rider and Subaru Motorsports USA driver, Semenuk was happy to land himself a busman’s holiday.
“I’ve been working on a project with SRAM for six months,” he said. “We got it wrapped just a couple of days before I flew over here. I’d been looking forward to coming to Finland for so long. It’s the birthplace of rallying, it’s the home for our sport – you know when you’re searching for rally footage on YouTube, you always go to Finland. You watch the jumps, the cars going sideways through the air, the speed…
“Then you come to this place and you experience these roads and you’re like: ‘OK, I get it’. I understand now why this sport is so big here. Our test was close to Jyväskylä, but was it a proper Rally Finland road? I don’t know – but it was amazing for me. It had a bit of everything: big speed, some jumps, a section of smaller road. The first time I was pushing in there, I came out of the stage and just smiled to myself.
“I was thinking: ‘This is insane… I love Finland!’
“And that feeling remained throughout the rally. The event was all pretty straightforward for us. The team provided a car with a really nice base set-up that I didn’t want to start changing or going off in different directions. To be honest, I wasn’t super-happy with my driving, but what was really encouraging for me was that I could see where the time was going. I was never getting to the end of a stage and thinking: ‘How did he do that?’
“There’s definitely more to come from me on those roads, but I was definitely pleased with the way everything went.”
Semenuk won a stage and finished a handsome second overall in Kouvola
Just re-read that last paragraph… you won’t hear Semenuk saying he’s pleased with second again. Then again, he was second to former Rally Finland winner and Finnish Rally Championship leader Esapekka Lappi.
Second to Lappi spoke volumes about where Semenuk’s at. He’d been winning Stateside rallies for fun for years now, but where was his actual pace? There was a shot at Rally Latvia last year, but such were the fraught circumstances around that ride, it wasn’t a fair assessment.
This was.
“From the minute I landed into Finland, this was just such an enjoyable experience,” he said. “I’m so happy about that. In Latvia, I never settled in to a point where I could start learning and just enjoy the event. It felt like a struggle before I even landed. Regardless of it being a poor event, it still helped me prepare for the next trip to Europe. Here, the test went well, the recce was cool and the rally was amazing. If I’m honest, the driving was s*** to start with, but as the time went on, I was driving more like I wanted to.
“But I just loved it. Especially the chance to meet Esapekka [Lappi] and some of these other big Finnish names like Niclas [Grönholm]. Genuinely, Esapekka is one of my favorite drivers to watch and meeting him was great. It’s just like his energy, it’s so calm, he’s such a chill dude with no BS. Talking to him is so refreshing, there’s no filter, just completely straightforward and cool – and, obviously, a super-talented driver!
Semenuk idolized Lappi, but the Finn was impressed with what he saw
“He came over halfway and introduced himself – he was at the front of the field and our paths hadn’t really crossed. He said: ‘Nice driving…’ I was like: ‘That’s the best f****** compliment I could have got this weekend!’ I have so much respect for him.
“It’s the same with Niclas, too. Such a cool kid and really quick. It would be awesome to get some of these dudes over to America, we could have so much fun racing them.”
Will Semenuk be back in Finland? Try and stop him.
Nobody goes to mecca once. Especially when they look so at home there.
Words:David Evans
Tags: ARA, Brandon Semenuk
Publish Date July 16, 2025 DirtFish
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