SCCA ProRally Championship's Rough Roads No Match for Mitsubishi Drivers

Michigan's Upper Peninsula Hosts Final Round of SCCA ProRally Championship

CYPRESS, Calif., Oct. 13 -- For most drivers, the often- treacherous road conditions of Michigan's Upper Peninsula call for caution. But David Higgins and Lauchlin O'Sullivan aren't most drivers.

The Team Mitsubishi Motorsports America rally drivers take their first- and second-place season rankings into the SCCA ProRally Championship's final race, the Lake Superior ProRally, on October 17 - 18, 2003. And the mud, slop and narrow forest roads tend to favor Higgins and O'Sullivan driving their red-and-sliver all-wheel-drive, 400-plus-horsepower Lancer Evolutions.

Higgins won the season opener at the Sno* Drift Rally in Atlanta, Mich., in January and followed that up with five more victories on his way to capture the John Woolf Cup, handed out to the Overall Top Driver of the SCCA ProRally Championship. His wins also secured Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) the SCCA ProRally Manufacturer's Championship, the company's first U.S. motorsports title.

O'Sullivan has secured second place behind his teammate, giving Team Mitsubishi a one-two finish in the most competitive and demanding motorsports venue. With two cars at the top of the SCCA ProRally standings, Mitsubishi is proving their new Lancer Evolution's superiority in their first year with a new team.

"Lancer Evolution makes good drivers great, and great drivers spectacular -- in all types of conditions, on all sorts of roads. David Higgins and Lauchlin O'Sullivan have proven that this year," said Richard Kelley, manager of motorsports and promotions for MMNA.

Like the World Rally Championship (WRC), the SCCA ProRally Championship is the only U.S. motorsports series that takes cars off showroom floors, modifies them for maximum speed and safety, and then races them on unforgiving roads and in extreme outdoor elements. The car with the lowest overall elapsed time on all the point-to-point stages wins.

The 2003 Lancer Evolution is one of four all-new products Mitsubishi Motors has launched this year in North America. Priced under $30,000, Evolution combines surreal road holding, shocking acceleration, purposeful styling, near-telepathic responses and a sense of control found only in exotic sports cars three times the price.