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.