ProRally: Prescott Forest start order

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.
* Corrections: Previously reported in the Media Alert was Karl Scheible's withdrawl from this event. The #61 Vermont Sports Car Mitsubishi was not scheduled to be at Prescott. The withdrawn team was the #162 Subaru of Patrick Richard/Ben Bradley. We regret the error. Both teams will be at the season-ending Lake Superior event in two weeks.

<pre> Information regarding the start order list: Car # = number on vehicle. Car # under 200 are ProRally entries. Car # over 200 are generally ClubRally (regional) entrants. Class = Open - fastest; are cars with considerable modifications; P (Production) - slowest; are cars very near to showroom stock configuration. G5 - two wheel drive high HP cars; G2 - two wheel drive lower horsepower cars; GT - high horsepower production (stock) cars. Un-seeded cars are entered in the ClubRally support events only.

Start Order (subject to revision) start Car# Seed Class Driver Co-driver year Car 1 2 FIA Open Paul Choiniere Jeff Becker 00 Hyundai Tiburon 2 1 FIA Open Noel Lawler Charlie Bradley 00 Hyundai Tiburon 3 4 1 Open Garen Shrader Michael Fennell 95 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV 4 28 1 Gr 2 Bill Malik Amity Trowbridge 80 Volvo 240 turbo 5 53 2 Open Kyoichi Takaori Ken Cassidy 95 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo III 6 160 2 Open Eric Eaton Kenny Almquist 99 Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS 7 32 2 Open Paul Eklund Scott Huhn 95 Subaru Impreza 8 95 2 Open Tony Chavez Eddie Cardenas 91 Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 9 20 2 Open George Plsek Alex Gelsomino 90 Audi Quattro 90 10 148 2 Open Lon Peterson Bill Gutzmann 00 Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS 11 71 2 Gr 5 Bryan Hourt John Dillon 97 Honda Civic 12 83 2 Gr 5 Mark Utecht Brenda Corneliusen 86 VW Golf GTi 13 72 2 GT Roger Hull Sean Gallagher 92 Eagle Talon TSi 14 51 2 Gr 2 Jay Streets Bill Feyling 85 Toyota Corolla 15 35 2 Open Lee Shadbolt Robert Sherman 97 Subaru Impreza 16 73 3 Gr 2 Nicholas Robinson Carl Lindquist 97 Honda Civic 17 165 3 P Dennis Chizma David Weiman 73 Porsche 911 18 98 3 Gr 2 Robert Nielsen Brett Corneliusen 87 VW Golf GTi 19 55 3 P Brian Vinson Richard Beets 88 VW Golf GTi 20 117 3 Open Ken Stewart Doc Shrader 85 Chevrolet S-10 21 374 4 Gr 5 Leon Styles Larry Scott 84 Mazda RX-7 22 101 4 Gr 2 Mark Brown Ole Holter 87 Toyota Corolla FX-16 23 84 5 Gr 2 J.B. Niday Al Kintigh 86 VW Golf GTi 24 149 6 Open Jonathan Ryther Nicholas Taylor 00 Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS 25 139 6 GT Janus Jastrzeldski Tom Zaremba 96 Subaru Impreza 26 68 3 Open Doug Robinson Sue Robinson 88 Mazda 323 GTX 27 214 3 Gr 5 Joe Noyes John Forespring 93 Toyota Supra 28 401 3 Gr 5 Jim Gillaspy Mick Kilpatrick 84 Dodge Colt turbo 29 311 3 Gr 2 Bradney Boli Gary Garman 86 Honda Accord LXi 30 322 3 Open Robert Pendergrass Jonathan Weigley 69 Chevrolet Blazer 31 378 3 Gr 2 Gary English Kengo Takahashi 81 Alfa-Romeo GTV6 32 303 2 P Paula Gibeault Chrissy Beavis 90 VW Jetta 33 325 3 Open Bruce Brown Pat Brown 95 Subaru Impreza 34 371 3 Gr 5 John Shults Don Shreyer 73 Mazda RX-3 35 367 3 Gr 2 Richard Byford Frances Olson 70 BMW 2002 36 364 6 Gr 2 Robert Sudhop Louis Panelli 96 Mitsubishi Eclipse 37 427 6 Open Drew Goldsmith Lee Sorensen 88 Toyota Celica All-Trac 38 396 6 GT Keith Roper Jack Evanson 91 Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 39 388 6 Gr 5 Darren Pennington EJ Webb 90 VW Corrado 40 387 6 Gr 5 Brady Dohrmann Brandon Smith 86 Mazda RX-7 41 934 6 Gr 2 Raymond Johansen Keith Adams 81 VW Rabbit 42 324 6 Open Peter Workum John Rippel 79 Plymouth Fire Arrow 43 386 6 Gr 5 Chris Acker Peter Morris 98 Ford Mustang