---

SCCA Announces Expanded 2001 ProRally Schedule

9 November 2000

 Denver, CO:  The Sports Car Club of America’s ProRally Championship, 
finishing yet another successful season, with significant growth in entries 
and sponsor investment, announced today its expanded 2001 schedule. The 2001 
schedule includes ten full-points championship events.  As is traditional for 
the SCCA ProRally program, the schedule includes a broad array of terrain and 
climate, including eastern and western forests, high desert and mountainous 
settings.  The season kicks off with a winter rally in late January, takes a 
brief hiatus for February, then resumes in March, with one event each month 
through October, which has two.  In deference to TV programming needs and 
transport factors, more than 50% of the events are scheduled on the first 
weekend of the month.  

The Championship features well-established SCCA events, many with histories 
of more than 20 years of operation, including the popular Susquehannock Trail 
event in Pennsylvania, and the season culminating Lake Superior rally in the 
upper peninsula of Michigan.     

The popularity of the FIA Group N category in its 2000 debut season took many 
by surprise, with indications for 2001 that the trend towards these globally 
recognized performance rally cars will continue.  The FIA rules phasing-in 
process is a long-term project, therefore all current SCCA ProRally classes 
will be returning for 2001. 

Manufacturer interest in the program has grown significantly over the past 
season, with Mitsubishi readying a supported team to vie for Open class and 
Overall honors. That class has become marketplace competitor Hyundai’s roost 
for five consecutive seasons; the longest string of back-to-back overall 
manufacturer championships in the history of the SCCA ProRally Championship.  
Rejoining the Championship after a long absence is Mazda, last winning an 
overall championship in the series in 1989, at that time under the tutelage 
of racing legend Rod Millen, with a  highly-modified RX-7.  This time the 
company will be fielding a production based 2001 Protégé, in the SCCA’s Group 
2 (two-wheel drive, 2 litre nominal displacement) category. 

All ten events are full points Manufacturers Championship events, for 
participating automakers, and are full points events for Drivers and 
Co-Drivers.  The full series is slated for North American television 
broadcast on Speedvision.