Travis Pastrana and 2025 winner Ryan Booth both feel Colorado should be an ARA National round
Photography by Rupert Berrington
Words by David Evans, DirtFish Head of Media
If ever there were three words destined to make rallying famous in Colorado it was the three which formed an unexpected question.
Back at the top of the millennium, stage rallying had only been a thing in Colorado for three years when Travis Pastrana and co-driver Christian Edström were sent skyward in a spiralling Subaru.
Seconds before, Edstrom offered the note: “Say again, left five minus into right four plus…” Seconds – and eight inversions – later came TP’s prime line.
“Are you alive?”
They were both alive and neither was in any position to disagree with Pastrana’s immediate post-shunt consideration. Literally, as the dust settled on the battered #199 Impreza, he let out a yell and said: “That was one hell of a ride.”
The Steamboat Springs event, formerly known as the Colorado Cog Rally (which ran at National level with the SCCA Pro Rally series from 2004), has been replaced by a modern incarnation anchored in Rangeley, northwest in the state, close to the border with Utah. Rally Colorado has been there since 2017, evolving from the Rally America series to become an ARA Super Regional qualifier this year.
Two decades on from that ride, Pastrana was back in Colorado again last month (not for the first time… he won the Cog the year after the crash) and very much in love with rallying in this part of America.
Pastrana told DirtFish: “We lost Colorado Cog, but that was a really fast rally. Rally Colorado was an open rally, but it was still extremely technical with a lot of blind corners, a lot of crests, and the scenery is definitely something that’s pretty cool and very unique.
“For the spectators, it’s fantastic; in some stages, they can see the cars coming for a long way. The rally shut down the town with an amazing parade. I think the fan base is there already, there was a really good car count and the roads are very different from anything else we’ve had. It’s one of the most technical rallies I’ve ever done.”
That’s borne out by average speeds generally lower than many of the current ARA National Championship presented by Kubota rounds. Pastrana, famously, is a man all about the speed. But he’s all about the challenge as well. A lower average wouldn’t put him off.
“I definitely would like to see it as a National round,” he smiled.
Quick as Pastrana’s WRX ARAL 25 was on its way to second overall at last month’s two-day, 120-mile event, Ryan Booth’s Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 was quicker.
Booth won this year's rally as a Super Regional
Like Pastrana, Booth’s a big fan of what Colorado has to offer. He won the event on just his second attempt in 2020.
“I’ve been trying to get back there ever since,” smiled Booth. “It was great to be there again last month.
“I absolutely love it. The stages have that open, deserty feel – a little bit like some of the roads in Oregon – but you also get this super-technical kind of rough surface which my buddy Nick [Dobbs, co-driver] likens to Rally México. You just kind of get a different landscape that you’re driving in. It’s a very diverse rally, nice and fast stages, flowy, and then really technical as well. And it’s just a really fun event.
“For me, as a driver, I enjoy technical, I enjoy the fast, I enjoy all of it, everything in between. So if we can get everything in one event, that’s just that much better, right? I don’t know what the average overall speed is of that rally compared to like an Oregon or a New England Forest Rally, but from a feeling standpoint, you get a little bit of everything out there, which is great.”
There’s also the geography. The time could be right for America’s premier series to be back in the middle of the country.
Booth continued: “Basically we have two events out west (Olympus and Oregon) and then nothing even close to them for the rest of the year, it would be great to do something else towards there. I guess if there’s one small downside it’s that there’s not so many hotels [in Rangeley]. We were staying a little way out of town, but that didn’t bother me – to be honest the drive in and out each day was just beautiful.
“I would love to see this event on the national calendar.”
America’s Mountain has provided Colorado with something of a history with rally cars, but this is something very different. This is an opportunity to open up the ARA National Championship presented by Kubota to something quite different. The rally makes crews think longer and harder about every aspect of the competition and offers just the sort of technical challenge some may feel the series is missing.
The time could be right for a return to Colorado.
Words:David Evans
Publish Date August 25, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/08/7X9lZO2V-25Colorado-Rupert-Berrington-250719_1848-780x520.jpg August 25, 2025
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