Sunriser 400 Pro Rally 1981

CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio-- After two years of "almost", New Zealander Rod Millen has captured the Sports Car Club of America's PRO Rally Championship. Millen and Co-driver R. Dale Kraushaar of Tigard, Oregon, won the SCCA Budweiser Sunriser 400 Rally going away, and in the process sewed up the driver's and co-driver's championships for themselves and the manufacturer's championship for Mazda. Their Mazda RX-7 led the 400 mile event from start to finish putting six minutes on the Datsun 510 of Jon Woodner of Washington, D.C., and Ginny Reese of Ann Arbor, Michigan--the defending Budweiser Sunriser Champions. The finish moved Woodner into fourth place in the overall standings; he has jumped from ninth place with good finishes in the last three events.

Third went to the Kiwi team of John Woolf and Grant Whittaker, both from Auckland, New Zealand, who overcame an early off road excursion and, later, brake problems with their Mazda RX-7 for another fine finish. Woolf is now second in the driver's championship. Fourth was the factory-backed French Peugeot 504 V-6 driven by the French-Canadian team of Joan-Paul Perusse and Louis Belanger of Montreal.

In the Production Class, the battle went to Guy Light of Midland, Michigan and his partner Jim Brandt of nearby Lake Odessa. They won the class in their American Motors Eagle SX/4 which survived a fight with a barbed wire fence ("We went through it and then had to go back through it to get back onto the road. At the control, we had to stop and unwind the wire from the car... .it scraped paint off everywhere.") The war, however, went to Jon Davis of Houghton, Michigan, and Harry Ward of Toledo, Ohio, who finished third in Production in their Saab 99 guaranteeing that, for the second year in a row, Davis, Ward, and Saab are the Production Class Champions. In fact, they are the only winners the class has ever had since it was only established as a championship catagory in 1980.

Second in Production in their best finish in that class ever were Bob Schaffner of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Gregg Mambourg of Lexington, Ohio, in a Datsun 510. They were one of the lucky ones--in all, only 32 of the record 69 car field were around at the finish. Two top contenders who did not finish were four time champion John Buffum who went out on the second stage with a broken half shaft on his Audi 5+5 and the factory-backed Production Peugeot 505 of Gary Eaton. They challenged Light's Eagle until an accident dropped them back late in the event.

Another big winner was BFGoodrich whose tires have shod the winners in 9 of the seasons 10 events so far. At the Budweiser Sunriser 400 BFG cars claimed the first three places and first in Production--not a bad nights work. Another Akron rubber company is starting to show some interest in the PRO Series and note was taken that the ninth place finishing car of Mark Hardymon and Tom Drake, a Plymouth Arrow, was wearing-brand new, company-supplied Firestones.

The 13-event PRO Rally Championship calendar now has three events left remaining on it. They are:

November6-8    Press On Regardless    Houghton, Michigan   Gary Hays (516) 947-4986
December5-5    Sno*Drift              Grayling, Michigan   Joe Andreini (313) 294-0271
December11-14  Reno international     Reno, Nevada         Cam Warren (702) 323-7446