Quintero Clinches the ARA Crown in LSPR’s Final-Stage Decider

The 2026 American Rally Association National Championship arrived at Lake Superior Performance Rally with two young drivers carrying a season’s worth of pressure into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It left with Seth Quintero and co-driver Topi Luhtinen on top. Their second-place finish behind Conner Martell, paired with a decisive run on the final Power Stage, delivered the title in a contest that stayed alive until the last competitive kilometres.

ARA’s live coverage announced Quintero as champion after the Power Stage, crediting his stage performance and overall second place with clinching the season. An earlier update on the same live feed called him provisional while competitors remained on the stages, and the separate event-results page still lacked a full classification when this report was prepared. The championship announcement is clear. The event classification should be checked again when ARA publishes its complete results.

A season built from firsts

Quintero came to rallying with a reputation earned far from American forest roads. The 24-year-old Californian had spent his career in off-road racing before beginning his first season of stage rallying in 2026. He joined Toyota GAZOO Racing World Rally Team in a GR Corolla Rally RC2, with Topi Luhtinen reading the road beside him. By the time the championship reached LSPR, the new pairing had already won twice overall and added two further podiums.

The rally had asked for more than raw speed. A stage crew has to absorb a road book, trust the notes, keep the car intact and make a useful decision at every change of surface. For Quintero and Luhtinen, learning the language of American rallying became part of the season’s achievement. Each result had added evidence that their pace could survive the specific demands of a national championship.

Block brought the championship lead to Marquette

Lia Block and co-driver Alex Gelsomino arrived as the points leaders. The official pre-event preview put Block 17 points ahead and gave her the chance to become the first woman to win the ARA National Championship overall. That possibility gave the finale a place in American rally history beyond the result itself.

Block’s season had been built through steady progress and a growing ability to fight at the front. Her first overall stage win, first rally lead and first overall podium had each moved the expectation around her. The LSPR weekend asked her to defend that progress against a rival who had discovered a remarkable pace in his first year on the stages.

The points picture tightened as the rally unfolded. ARA’s live update before the final Power Stage described the lead as two points and made clear that the title would be decided on that last test. Quintero needed a major final-stage result. There was no safe arithmetic left, and neither crew could treat the Power Stage as a ceremonial run to the finish.

The final stage carries the whole season

LSPR was laid out across 16 national stages and 123.80 competitive miles, with the forests and sandy roads of the Upper Peninsula providing a rough, fast conclusion to the season. The rally’s long history is part of its pull, but its place as the final round also gives every stage a particular weight. When the championship comes down to the last test, the road is both a route and a calculation.

Conner Martell won the event, placing his Subaru ahead of the title contenders. Quintero took second and Block was behind him in the live order. The finishing positions mattered, though the final stage carried its own points and became the decisive piece of the championship. Quintero delivered when the season’s last opportunity arrived, and his result with Luhtinen was enough to turn their charge into a title.

That distinction matters in rallying. The overall result is shaped by every stage, yet the Power Stage asks crews to find speed once more after they have already spent the weekend protecting the car and managing risk. A final push earns valuable points when a car reaches the finish cleanly. Quintero’s championship was secured through the combination of a strong overall rally and a final-stage performance that completed the job.

A Toyota campaign reaches its first summit

The title gives Toyota’s first American Rally season a landmark result. Quintero and Luhtinen began the year as a new crew learning a different form of competition. They finished it as national champions, after two outright wins and several podium results had established them among the strongest pairings in the field.

Block and Gelsomino’s campaign remains a landmark in its own right. They arrived with the lead and with the chance to make history, then met a rival’s late surge on a rally designed to test crews from beginning to end. Their season helped make the championship a genuine contest. Quintero’s success is part of that story, as is the pressure Block carried into Marquette.

A title decided on the last stage is easy to describe as dramatic. The more telling point is how much work had to be completed before the final run could matter. Quintero and Luhtinen built the speed, trust and consistency that put them in reach. At LSPR, they turned that work into a second-place rally finish and a championship. The season found its answer in the final forest kilometres, with the result carrying a new name into the history of American rallying.