Dillon Van Way Wins Again in Rally America
Portland, Oreg. – The transition from motorcycle racing to rally cars is serving Louisiana’s Dillon Van Way well during his first year in the Rally America Championship. After winning his first race in the Two-Wheel Drive Class (2WD) last month, he backed it up with another win, finishing 46 seconds ahead of the second place driver at the Oregon Trail Rally in Portland on May 15-17.
This time the 17 year-old Van Way partnered with Michigan’s Benjamin Slocum as his co-driver. Slocum has vast experience navigating courses during the Rally America Championship. Since Van Way was leading the class standings coming into Oregon, he asked Slocum to join him knowing that the additional experience could make a difference.
“The race was absolutely great,” said Van Way who uses number 600. “I loved the roads and the battle we had with Zbigniew Szewczyk and Tomasz Karzynski. Certainly having Ben next to me navigating helped my confidence. We still didn’t expect to do as well here as we did in Washington since we don’t have a turbo engine. With the Rally America rules 2WD turbos and non-turbos are scored together. Really though, the rally races keep getting better and better!”
Van Way has a commanding lead in the 2WD class standings with a 49-point advantage. Competing in his 2002 Ford Focus, he also finished 12th overall among all competitors and sits in 12th in the overall standings.
Rally America Championship - 2WD Standings (after 4 of 9 rounds)
- Dillon Van Way 75
- John Conley 26
- Burak Tuglu 23
- Chris Greenhouse 22
- Zbigniew Szewczyk 18
The nine-round Rally America Championship heads next to the east coast. The Susquehannock Trail Rally is on June 5-6 in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. To learn more about the series, visit www.rally-america.com.
Van Way added, “We know anything can happen even though we have a large points lead. Of course, our goal is to take each race as it comes and end up with the class championship.”
Van Way will make his return to the XTRM AMA Pro Supermoto Championship on Sunday, May 31 at the South Point Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Racing a KTM250SX-F his goal is to finish in the top 10 like he did at the opening round. Van Way currently sits 15th in the 250cc Lites Class standings. He missed round two, which was the same weekend as the Oregon Trail Rally. Visit www.xtrm.com/supermoto to learn more about the series.
“I’m excited to head to Las Vegas for supermoto,” said Van Way. “It stinks that we lost points missing the second round. At least we can make the next two rounds which don’t conflict with the Rally America series.”
Be sure to look for number 600 at round three of the XTRM AMA Pro Supermoto Championship and at all the Rally America events.
About Dillon Van Way
Dillon Van Way of Carencro, La. is a multi-faceted action sports athlete participating in both the Rally America Championship and the XTRM AMA Pro Supermoto Championship. The nine-round Rally America series has multi-day events that feature real cars racing against the clock on closed-off sections of real roads that are usually unpaved and unforgiving. Seventeen year-old Van Way is competing for the first time with a 2002 Ford Focus in the Two-Wheel Drive (2WD) Class. The five-round AMA Pro Supermoto series provides fans unique action as the racers take specialized motocross bikes on typically 70 percent asphalt and 30 percent dirt courses with jumps. Van Way is competing for the second consecutive year in the 250cc Lites Class on a KTM.
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