SCCA: Late Breaking News - Prescott Forest SCCA ProRally

29 September 2000

SCCA ProRally Championship Round # 8 - Prescott Forest

Prescott, Arizona:  With the 2000 season in its next to last and most 
technically challenging event of the year, over 40 of the most hardy Sports 
Car Club of America ProRally and ClubRally cars remaining in this grueling 
season are ready to start the Prescott Forest SCCA ProRally.  The Rally 
starts tomorrow afternoon, Friday September 29 from the events hotel 
headquarters in Prescott, AZ (about 100 miles northwest of Phoenix) at 4:30 
PM.  Immediately preceding the start will be a brief 30-minute Parc Expose.  
An additional, one-hour Parc Expose is scheduled just prior to the Leg two 
restart of the rally on Saturday morning, at 8:00 AM.

Selected late entries, news  

·   Many of the leading SCCA ProRally Championship teams are in attendance, 
including the Hyundai Tiburons of Paul Choiniere and Noel Lawler, the 
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV of resurgent Garen Shrader/Michael Fennell team, and 
a healthy pack of Subaru Imprezas, (7 of the 43 entrys) featuring Oregon's 
Paul Eklund, Lee Shadbolt and California regulars Lon Peterson and Jonathan 
Ryther.  As at Wild West just two weeks ago, most of the series driver's 
championships remain undecided, with good showings this weekend now critical 
for many teams.

·   Also joining the field is Kyoichi "Tony" Takaori who has flown in from 
Japan just for this event.  Driving a 1995 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo III, his 
co-driver is Phoenix resident and Prescott Forest veteran Ken Cassidy.  
Cassidy was the co-driver for Ralph Kosmides' Group 5 Toyota Supra effort 
throughout the 2000 season, until that team withdrew from the championship 
after Round 6, Ojibwe Forest. 

·   High on that "critical" list are the pair of Group 5 teams that had more 
than their share of trials and tribulations at Wild West.  Bryan Hourt's "new 
school" supercharged Honda Civic had a rough Leg one at Wild West, and only 
thanks to Mark Utecht's huge off and subsequent DNF at Wild West has remained 
in the championship hunt.  Utecht, now saddled with a slim 5 point lead over 
Hourt, is renting the immaculately prepared Group 2 VW Golf Gti of David 
White.  While this car is significantly down on horsepower when compared to 
Hourt's Honda, this car has run near the front before, and is a veteran of 
the pounding trails here in Arizona.  

·   The event is known for its technical, twisty high desert and mountain 
trails in and around the spectacular Prescott Forest, and the historic mining 
town of Jerome.  One of the highest rallys in the world, most of the event is 
run at 5000 or more feet above sea level.  The trails are a combination of 
extremely fine lung and air filter choking silt and large undercarriage 
mangling rocks, making suspension setup a fine art.

·   Weather forecast:  Much of Arizona has been under a brutal late summer 
heat wave, with over 21 days this month posting highs over 100 degrees F.  
Fortunately for the participants, the rally's high desert location should 
keep daytime temps in the 80's.  Rain is predicted for this evening - a real 
rarity in Arizona, which should help keep the dust, at least on Friday's 
stages, to a minimum.