Lia Block, daughter of Ken, wins her first rally championship

That apple didn’t fall far from the tree: 17-year-old Lia Block, daughter of the late rally racer and famous stunt driver Ken Block, just won her first rally championship. Lia shares the championship with co-driver Rhianon Gelsomino, wife of Ken’s co-driver Alex Gelsomino. Lia and Rhianon race in the American Rally Association two-wheel-drive class, in a Subaru BRZ.

“What a crazy year,” Lia said. “The hard work that the @blockhouseracing team put in was absolutely incredible. I’m so thankful for everyone who helped get us here this season! We took the championship two races early, which means I’m the youngest driver to win an ARA championship, at 16 years old,” Lia said. “That’s an amazing feeling. Because of that, we’ve got a really rad announcement coming tomorrow.”

 

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That rad announcement: Lia will race her father’s Ford Escort Cosworth rally car in the Open Four Wheel Drive class at the final ARA race of the year, this weekend’s Lake Superior Performance Rally in Marquette, Michigan. With the two-wheel-drive championship set, “I get to do the last rally in my dad’s Ford Escort Cossie V2,” which is the car’s nickname. Ken Block built the 1994 V2 after the original car burned up at the 2018 New England Forest Rally after he rolled it.

“This is my first time in an all-wheel-drive car,” Lia said. “I’m super excited to race this at LSPR this year—it’s going to be really fun. Hopefully there’s some good weather, maybe no snow this year. I am just super stoked to be able to race this car!”

Ken Block, of course, died in a freak snowmobile accident last January. He was a visionary when it came to cars and the media, particularly online, with his YouTube videos amassing hits totaling hundreds of millions. At the time of his death, he had more than five million Facebook likes.

Block co-founded the skateboarding-focused DC Shoes in June, 1994. A decade later, the company was sold in a deal reportedly worth $87 million. That gave Block enough money to take his next big step—rally racing. Though he became quite good at it, making a name for himself behind the wheel of Subarus and Fords, it wasn’t there he would make his true mark. That was in his “Hoonigan” videos, where he’d carve up some landscape in seemingly impossible ways. He was 55 when he died.

Meanwhile, we wish good luck to Lia this weekend. It’ll be fun to see how she handles 371 horsepower, feeding all four wheels.

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