Marrysville, Ohio -- Team RallyVW, of Marrysville, Ohio, has locked down runner-up status in Group 2 for the 2001 SCCA ProRally season. Driver Jon Hamilton and Co-Driver Ken Sabo brought Hamilton's Volkswagen Rabbit to its sixth top-4 finish of the year at the Prescott Forest event in Arizona.

Hamilton is leading 3rd place Eric Burmeister and his wicked-fast new Mazda Protege by a comfortable 31 points- effectively making it impossible to loose the number two slot. That fact, combined with damage to the car from the Prescott event, and a blown engine in the service truck on the return trip, make a rather compelling case for Hamilton limiting his participation in the upcoming rally to watching it on SpeedVision.

But the Group 2 leader, Dave White, and his bulletproof VW Golf are only ahead by 19 points- and won't be attending LSPR. If Hamilton can take the 22 points for a first place finish at LSPR, he will take 1st for the season. The 17 points a second place finish would garner would still leave him 2 shy of the top spot.

So, with only 9 days to prepare, the elite members of RallyVW's service crew set to work on overhauling the battered 20-year-old Rabbit for one last race before retirement. One of them even volunteered his truck to serve as tow vehicle, and another his for service. Hamilton has called upon Josh Westhoven to serve as Co-Driver for this event. This will be the third time they've run it together. When Westhoven learned that only a first place finish will do, that it's the last race for the car, and that the Rabbit has been lightened and tuned to be faster than ever, he responded, "does anyone have a full-face helmet I can borrow?"