Keaton Williams impresses with third place on American debut

Williams and teammate Josh McErlean finished third overall and first in the RC2 class in the Olympus Rally which took place near Seattle.

Driving a Hyundai R5, it was the first time the duo had ventured to America for a ARA Championship event.

The format for the event featured eight tests on the Saturday totalling some 128 kilometres, including two runs at the 29.76km Wildcat stage, but the second run in darkness was sadly cancelled.

Dry weather during the recce gave way to rain and drizzle making the fast stages extremely slippery.

The duo opened their account fourth fastest on the first test and continued to impress on the next two stages to hold fourth at service, with Travis Pastrana, Brandon Semenuk and Ken Block making up the top three.

The positions stayed the same over the next loop with the three powerful open class Subarus pulling away on the ultra-fast stages.

The last stage of the day was the awesome Wildcat test, nearly 30km of twisty, slippery and technical terrain and that was where McErlean and Williams really got it together, setting the fastest time, two seconds better than Pastrana.

This also where the rally claimed second-placed Semenuk when he crashed out, which promoted Williams and McErlean to third overnight.

Sunday’s loop opened up with the duo third fastest on the 31 kilometres of Nahwatzel and from there on in they held the position of third on the following three tests.

That ensured an impressive third place finish overall and the RC2 class win with Pastrana taking another win from Block in second in the main standings.

The duo’s casuse was helped slightly when McErlean’s Motorsport Ireland team mate Callum Devine retired from fourth place on stage 10 with engine issues.

McErlean and Williams then held a three and a half minute lead over American Ryan Booth.

"It feels so good to get our first stage win here in America, we had a good rhythm and pushed really hard, it just clicked,” said Williams.