The all American team of Lauchlin O’Sullivan and Mark Williams have fought through nearly six inches of fresh snow today to finish an impressive 4th overall on O’Sullivan’s Canadian debut at the International Rallye de Quebec. O’Sullivan overcame several setbacks on day one of the Quebec event and won his first stage with the all-new factory backed Mitsubishi rally team. His teammate, the reigning U.S. SCCA ProRally champion David Higgins retired from the event early on day two while leading the rally by ten seconds.

The new Mitsubishi team, run by U.S. rally car preparation and team management company Vermont SportsCar, headed over the border to the International Rallye de Quebec to promote the Mitsubishi Motors brand, which just recently began selling vehicles in Canada. The team also aimed to put more stage miles on their new Michelin shod Open Class Lancer Evolution rally cars. “The whole reason we came to this non-championship event was to show Mitsubishi’s presence in Canada and get some excitement going for the brand, so many Canadian rally fans were overjoyed to see us here” explains Team Director Lance Smith. “We also got some much needed stage miles on our new Evo’s in preparation for our next U.S event.”

Heavy snowfall on day two saw O’Sullivan get his first taste of driving with snow tires as he challenged the more experienced snow drivers from Canada. “We put on snow tires for the last set of stages and it was a real learning process,” O’Sullivan explained. “I have never driven in the snow on true snow tires. We spun on the very first corner of the first stage that we used them, but I soon began to get a feel for them, they were great, really amazing.” O’Sullivan also achieved his first stage win as a member of Team Mitsubishi Motor Sports America. “I tried so hard to get a stage win today and didn’t realize that I had won a stage until then end of the event. It feels great!”

After winning 3 of 6 stages and achieving a 10 second lead at the end of day one, David Higgins’ rally came to an end on the first stage of day two. A gearshift cable problem occurred on Higgins’ Lancer Evolution halfway into the day’s first stage and Higgins suddenly could not get the gear lever to shift into any gear. He then slid off the road and got stuck in a small snow bank. In a display of true sportsmanship, Paul Choiniere, who was sitting in 3rd overall at the time, stopped to try and help Higgins back on the road, and sacrificed nearly a minute. Lauchlin O’Sullivan then came through the stage and he too stopped for nearly two mintues to help Higgins get back on the road. With O’Sullivan’s help Higgins got his car on the road and was able to put the car in 3rd gear and limp out of the stage. With two stages to go until the next scheduled service and with just 3rd gear, Higgins’ decided to call it a day and not risk damaging the car.

“I think we could have had a victory here,” explained Higgins. “But really it is for the best that we had this problem here. We came to Canada to get more miles on these new cars and to find any faults before our next U.S. event where everything counts. Now we know this problem exists and can fix it so it doesn’t happen again.”

Team Mitsubishi Motor Sports America’s next event will be the Rim of the World ProRally in Palmdale, California, May 2-3.