EVO Neil

iTrader: (6)

Motorsports is always the first program to be cut in tough financial times, so this is not unexpected. No offense to those younger evolutionm.net folks that are paying their loans but many of Mitsubishi's young target buyers are financially immature and unfortunately many don't pay their loans which is what caused this problem here in the states. At least the financial bleeding appears to be confined to the U.S. which should allow the WRC program to be a go for this coming year.

nsx29

I think Mitsu made the right decision. WRC is more important than SCCA anyways. SCCA Pro Rally is not as well organized as WRC. SCCA cars are more dangerous with no sequential tranny and too much horsepower. It's just a Faster Group N rally car minus all the goodies as the tranny and differentials. WRC>SCCA. I only like the SCCA SPEED World Challenge.

RaX

How are they giving up on the Evo? They don't need to participate in the SCCA ProRally to sell Evos. Also if they didn't care about the Evo, they wouldn't be offering the Evo RS next year.

cleb'sevo8

hey guys, if you really think about it, rally would be a more world wide advertisement thatn scca right? if you had to pick, which one would you pick?

eclipsegs2k1

yeah, i would think that the wrc rally races are definitely viewed by more people world wide than the scca pro rally races were... i mean it's too bad that mitsubishi is having financial problems though because i do think that the scca pro rally success was good advertisement for the Evo in the US.

MaxR

iTrader: (3)

is mitsubishi running the evo in wrc next year? i thought i read something about returning with a different car. something about following the trend of smaller cars and using an all new colt evo.

coil

that was a shame back in july. my buddy is a pro rally driver and actually hung out with lovel the night before he died. some people were killed in a club rally event a few weeks before that, too.

i dont blame mitsu for pulling out this next season.. when money is tight, cuts need to be made somewhere.

for the scca pro rally the cars dont have to have OEM equipment like WRC cars do to be legal. the jdm evo has an oem anti-lag option and its the same reason why the jdm sti still only has a 2.0 engine. i wish they would bring the anti-lag option over here though.

Spare-Flair

Mitsu said it was too expensive to re-engineer the Colt for WRC so they are sticking with the Evo. Good thing too. The Colt is dead-ugly as are most of Mitsu's latest offerings. When are they going to realize they have to start designing cars that appeal to the American market if they want to sell them here? I don't know how many newspaper and magazine articles I've read that call the latest Mitsu's Pontiacs.

M3lachsilber

THIS is why they pulled out of SCCA..
There is more marketing, technology, and "bang for your buck" by a manufacturer investing in WRC than the SCCA series for sure..

Mitsu may not be able to afford both or perhaps they can but prefer to invest in winning the WRC next season..

IMO..

Illrunya

iTrader: (7)

Im lookin forward to it!!

It sucks to see leaving ProRally, but its worth it to see represent in the WRC!

Ken

osunick

iTrader: (8)

True. Marketing is also more than just advertising. It includes advertising, and of course motorsport, which is another form of advertising but it is also about understanding the customers and figuring how Mitsubishi's strengths as a car company can help them create a product that people will buy over the competition.

The decision to bring the Evo was made by some person in marketing who decided that their ability to build a world class production rally car was something that few competitors could match, thus justifying the expense of bringing the evo to compete in our market.

BjornChristian

Sorry, but the WRC budget, put together by MMSP GmBH and the SCCA ProRally budget, put together by MMSA are not related.
Choosing to field a WRC team has no impact on the costs of fielding an SCCA team.

One could speculate that MMSA felt like they would get free exposure due to WRC, and thus decided not to field a ProRally team, but I think the more likely reason for not fielding a team had more to do with the current financial situation, and simply trying to cut as much discretionary spending as possible in North America.

Cheers,
- Christian

Off to NASIOC! j/k

evo8usa

iTrader: (3)

It's kind of sad though because Pasi Hagstrom and Marko Taskinen would have given you guys a run for your money next year (Ramana too).

Any word on what You, Lauchlin, David, and Daniel will be doing next year?

Good Luck!

BjornChristian

I don't know any more than you do, but it would seem logical that David and Lauchlin would both apply for the AFR drive.

I've put out a few feelers to see if I can get an Asia-Pacific or PCWRC ride. I may try to do a national series plus selected WRC rounds in Gr. N. But, if you've got a car, and a good budget, PM me!

- Christian

sblvro

iTrader: (2)

it's too bad MMCNA is backing out of SCCA. But with their impressive win, they want to leave it at that and let the privateers run the SCCA on their own. I doubt if it will have the same result though.