North American Rally Champion Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard and his NOS Energy Team ACP Racing placed a strong fifth overall in the first European-style rallycross event in US history, held this past weekend at New Jersey Motorsports Park.

Despite competing throughout the heats and “A” final event with a blown headgasket and the interior heater on full blast in the over-90 degree temperatures, and while racing with a smaller 40mm intake restrictor than the 45mm-restricted winning European-spec Ford Fiesta, Comrie-Picard drove his Mitsubishi Evo rally car to the limit to be in the A final and score the result.

“I’m really happy with the weekend for a bunch of reasons,” said a happy ACP. “First off, it’s terrific proof that Rallycross is going to work as a format in the US. The thousands of fans were insanely enthusiastic, and the track administration said it was by far the most exciting event they’ve hosted since they opened the beautiful facility three years ago, and that includes Grand-Am and Superbikes.” The Rallycross track arrangement used sections of the well-engineered racetrack, then diverted onto several dirt portions built specifically for the event, including a jump, and a “joker” diversion course that each car is required to take once per heat.

“Second, we had a great result considering that the two Fords that beat us were full-spec European rallycross cars, and the two Subarus were the US factory team effort. For us as privateers, and especially considering our small turbo and restrictor, we really couldn’t have hoped for better. I drove the car right to the edge, and better yet, we all had crazy fun doing it.” Fellow competitor Dave Mirra and Comrie-Picard were seen in each others’ pits after heats talking excitedly about what had happened in each race. “This is real fun for us, honestly. In rally, you might talk to each other after a stage and try to compare notes on the course. Here, we’re like ‘dude! I totally got you where the joker merges in over the jump!’ That’s fun, and the spectators love it too” said ACP.

The team was assisted by BFGoodrich tire technology derived from successful World Rally programs, using tarmac rally tires of the type used by top BFGoodrich teams internationally. “The braking was insane,” said Comrie-Picard, “one of the other top competitors on a different tire rear-ended me in a braking zone when he locked up. I should have known he wasn’t on BFGs.”

The NOS Energy team will return at the next scheduled Rallycross event on October 2-3 at the same venue, with a new AMS motor and polycarbonate windshield. “We’ll be back with an evolved car and more game. Make no mistake,” quipped Comrie-Picard, “we’re in it to win it.”

Andrew Comrie-Picard is the current North American Rally Champion and in 2010 competed in X Games for a fifth time and won a bronze medal. He also drifts at the professional level for Dodge Motorsports and BFGoodrich in the FormulaD drift championship in a Viper. When he isn’t racing, Comrie-Picard works in film, television, and print media as an automotive expert; he hosts the television show Ultimate Car Build-off airing at on Discovery Channel. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Rallycross is a highly-exciting, fan-oriented motorsport in which 500+ horsepower cars go head-to-head on a closed-circuit dirt and tarmac course. More info can be found at www.rally-america.com

The ACP Rally program is made possible by:

• NOS Energy (www.drinknos.com)
• K&N (www.knfilters.com)
• BF Goodrich (www.bfgoodrichtires.com)
• Motul (www.motulusa.com)
• AMS Performance (www.amsperformance.com)
• Brian Crower (www.briancrower.com),
• JE (www.jepistons.com)
• Exedy (www.exedyusa.com)
• Öhlins (www.ohlinsusa.com)
• Pfitzner Performance Gearbox (www.ppgearbox.com.au)
• Mishimoto (www.mishimoto.com)
• Oakley (www.oakley.com)
• Recaro (www.recaro.com)
• Innovate Motorsports (www.tuneyourengine.com)
• Works (www.worksevo.com)
• NGK (www.ngksparkplugs.com)
• Rockford Fosgate (www.rockfordfosgate.com)
• Piloti (www.piloti.com)
• Skull Candy (www.skullcandy.com).

Los Angeles, California (ACP Racing) August 1, 2010 – North American Rally Champion Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard took third place overall and the Bronze Medal in Rally Car Racing at X Games 16 this weekend in a hard-fought battle that saw twelve of the best drivers and teams in the country and from around the world fighting in the Los Angeles Coliseum.

For Comrie-Picard, the result was the culmination of successful year as a driver, TV host, and now team owner. “We’ve competed at every X Games, but this year was probably the most challenging. The venue change, the rules changes, and running a car for a guest driver – all these things made concentrating on my own driving difficult, and yet we were lucky enough to come through with a medal” said ACP.

The X Games Rally Car Racing had previously taken place at the Home Depot Center, but this year was at the historic LA Coliseum. Rules changes saw the allowance of European-format 600-horsepower cars, and Comrie-Picard supported FormulaDrift teammate Samuel Hubinette by lending Hubinette his newer Mitsubishi Evoluiton X for the SuperRally competition.

“Actually all the pressure and complexities that this year threw at us were probably a good thing. We didn’t have time to think about anything else, so when race day came, we just went for it. X Games is all about putting it out there, and that’s exactly what we did” said Comrie-Picard.
Ford drivers Tanner Foust and Brian Deegan took first and second place respectively, and fellow Canadian Antoine L’Estage tied with Comrie-Picard for the Bronze in lieu of a showdown medal match. Antoine, like Hubinette, was competing in a newer Mitsubishi Evolution X.
The result was a tremendous success for ACP Racing and Comrie-Picard, as only a day before they blew their high-spec large turbo and so competed with a stock Mitsubishi turbo and 40mm intake restrictor. This meant they were competing with about 200hp less than their main rivals on 45mm intake restrictors.

“You work with what you have,” quipped ACP. “We’ll be back next year with all the game we can muster, and we’ll be in it for the gold.”

Here are 2 Quick videos of Andrew and Samuel preparing for the X Games competition.

The ACP Rally program is made possible by:

• NOS Energy (www.drinknos.com)
• K&N (www.knfilters.com)
• BF Goodrich (www.bfgoodrichtires.com)
• Motul (www.motulusa.com)
• AMS Performance (www.amsperformance.com)
• Brian Crower (www.briancrower.com),
• JE (www.jepistons.com)
• Exedy (www.exedyusa.com)
• Öhlins (www.ohlinsusa.com)
• Pfitzner Performance Gearbox (www.ppgearbox.com.au)
• Mishimoto (www.mishimoto.com)
• Oakley (www.oakley.com)
• Recaro (www.recaro.com)
• Innovate Motorsports (www.tuneyourengine.com)
• Works (www.worksevo.com)
• NGK (www.ngksparkplugs.com)
• Rockford Fosgate (www.rockfordfosgate.com)
• Piloti (www.piloti.com)
• Skull Candy (www.skullcandy.com).

NEWRY, Maine (ACP Racing) July 19, 2010 – NOS Energy rally driver Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard suffered an electrical fire in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 10 on the second-to-last stage of the New England Forest Rally this past weekend and were unable to finish the hot and difficult event.

Despite running as high as fourth overall, the team suffered from an exhaust leak that melted the shift linkage, damaged the wiring harness, and melted Comrie-Picard’s right shoe to the floorboard.

“It was just one of those things – a downpipe failed, and given the high ambient temps and the heat of the exhaust, things just started melting. Thankfully my high-temp suit and race boots allowed me to keep driving even when it got so hot that the shift cables distorted, which made shifting really hard. But when the harness melted, the car quit” said Comrie-Picard.

ACP and the ACP Racing team use Oakley safety equipment. The paint and sealant on the footwell melted but ACP’s shoe was undamaged.

The damage to the wiring harness caused a small electrical fire which the team put out on the side of the penultimate stage. Co-driver Adam Kneipp kept his composure reading the notes even while coughing from the smoke.

“It was disappointing for sure,” said Comrie-Picard, “but the car is basically undamaged so we’re looking to the next event already.”

The team is en route to California and preparing for the X Games on July 30-31. Comrie-Picard will run both Rally Car Racing and SuperRally events, and his teammate on the SHR Dodge Motorsports Drift team, Samuel Hübinette, will compete in SuperRally in one of ACP Racing’s cars also.

The ACP Rally program is made possible by:

• NOS Energy (www.drinknos.com)
• K&N (www.knfilters.com)
• BF Goodrich (www.bfgoodrichtires.com)
• Motul (www.motulusa.com)
• AMS (www.amsperformance.com)
• Brian Crower (www.briancrower.com),
• JE (www.jepistons.com)
• Exedy (www.exedyusa.com)
• Öhlins (www.ohlinsusa.com)
• Pfitzner Performance Gearbox (www.ppgearbox.com.au)
• Mishimoto (www.mishimoto.com)
• Oakley (www.oakley.com)
• Recaro (www.recaro.com)
• Innovate Motorsports (www.tuneyourengine.com)
• Works (www.worksevo.com)
• NGK (www.ngksparkplugs.com)
• Rockford Fosgate (www.rockfordfosgate.com)
• Piloti (www.piloti.com)
• and Skull Candy (www.skullcandy.com).

AMS supported driver, and a good friend Andrew „ACP” Comrie –Picard is co-hosting a new show on Discovery Channel the Ultimate Car Build-Off. Make sure to check out the show premiere on Monday, June 21, 9 PM E/P!

In Ultimate Car Build-Off, top auto shops in LA, Detroit and Atlanta compete for a chance at glory and a $100,000 grand prize. Each week the teams transform trucks into tanks and Firebirds into fliers in an attempt to make it to the finals and win the cash. Join hosts Lou Santiago and Andrew Comrie-Picard (“ACP”) – as well as judge Chip Foose – as the greatest minds in automotive engineering twist and turn the ordinary into the ass-kickingly awesome.

For more information about the show, episode guide and videos make sure to make the jump to the official Ultimate Car Build-Off site.

Mitsubishi Canada recently releases this commercial featuring  a slew of AMS tuned evos including AMS Powered ACP Rally EVO IX, EVO X and a current Rally America points leader Antoine L’Estage’s EVO X.

Portland, Oregon (ACP RACING)  – North American Rally Champion Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard and the NOS Energy Rally Team won the long and difficult Oregon Trail Rally this weekend, scoring victory with a strong and steady drive in an event that saw both close competition and some major crashes. The team led almost the entire event on the way to the win.

“It’s a great result,” said Comrie-Picard, “everything went according to our strategy and the win is an important one at this point in the season. It’s great that the car, the team, and our partners are all working so well.”

Comrie-Picard and co-driver Jeremy Wimpey, in their NOS Energy Mitsubishi on BFGoodrich tires, started off the three-day event with a strong performance at Portland International Raceway and took a narrow lead into the first night over rivals Ken Block (Ford/Pirelli), Dave Mirra (Subaru/BFGoodrich), and Antoine L’Estage (Mitsubishi/Yokohama).

Early on the second day of competition, in the Hood River region of Oregon, Block set two fastest times and briefly overhauled Comrie-Picard for the lead, but on the next stage rolled the car and was unable to continue. The same corner had claimed Mirra with a roll earlier in the day. L’Estage cracked a wheel and dropped back in the field but was able to claw back to third place overall by the end of the competition.

William Bacon, in a Mitsubishi Evolution similar to Comrie-Picard’s, put in a steady and fast drive with no major problems to finish second, 44 seconds off the winning time.

“We just went out with a pace in mind and stuck to the plan,” said co-driver Wimpey, “we pushed a bit on the first night to get the lead then paced ourselves for the next two days to be where we needed to be at the end.”

The event included a wide variety of road characters and surfaces, from tarmac and mixed tarmac stages on Friday, to twisty, technical, and rough gravel stages on Saturday, to very fast, smooth, and silty stages on Sunday. Hot weather tested the endurance of cars and teams.

The result vaults Comrie-Picard past Block and into to a tie for fourth place with Dave Mirra in the Rally America Championship.

For more images from the race please visit WORLD RALLY SPORT

The ACP Rally program is made possible by:

• NOS Energy (www.drinknos.com)
• K&N (www.knfilters.com)
• BF Goodrich (www.bfgoodrichtires.com)
• Motul (www.motulusa.com)
• AMS (www.amsperformance.com)
• Brian Crower (www.briancrower.com),
• JE (www.jepistons.com)
• Exedy (www.exedyusa.com)
• Öhlins (www.ohlinsusa.com)
• Pfitzner Performance Gearbox (www.ppgearbox.com.au)
• Mishimoto (www.mishimoto.com)
• Oakley (www.oakley.com)
• Recaro (www.recaro.com)
• Innovate Motorsports (www.tuneyourengine.com)
• Works (www.worksevo.com)
• NGK (www.ngksparkplugs.com)
• Rockford Fosgate (www.rockfordfosgate.com)
• Piloti (www.piloti.com)
• and Skull Candy (www.skullcandy.com).

Exclusive coverage of the 2010 Olympus Rally — Round 3 of the Rally America Series Championship featuring AMS sponsored Andrew-Comrie Picard  and AMS tuned Rockstar Royal Group Mitsubishi Evo 10 driven by the current points leader Antoine L’Estage.

AMS powered ACP Rally EVO IX from 2010 Olympus Rally - photo by Scott Rains www.worldrallysport.com

For more great pictures from the event make sure to make the jump to WorldRallySport.com

ATLANTA, MI (ACP Racing) — Defending North American rally champion Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard earned some strong early-season points with a fourth-place finish at the icy U.S. season opener this weekend in northern Michigan.

The NOS Energy-backed rally team of ACP and co-driver Jeremy Wimpey took a cautious approach to the start of the contest in some of the most challenging conditions ever seen in U.S. rally competition.

“It was like a luge course out there,” said Comrie-Picard. “The first few stages were the iciest I have ever seen… and the rally just got icier from there.”

Winter racing in those conditions is about keeping it tidy and making fewer mistakes than the competition. It’s a strategy that earned ACP the win at this event in 2006, and he has finished on the podium in each of the past two years.

The rally was going to plan, with the team working toward a podium finish, but a misstep led to an off-road excursion that cost them eight minutes. Pro mountain bike riders Carl Decker and Adam Craig – both national team members who ride for Giant – stopped in the middle of the race to yank them out so the team didn’t lose any more time shoveling.

The incident dropped the team to eighth overall. With some smart driving, they were able to bring their car home in fourth-place overall.

The event drew thousands of spectators to northern Michigan to cheer on the teams – despite the cold and icy weather. Special thanks from the team to the Garland Lodge and Resort in Lewiston, MI, for their support at this event.

The duo will next compete at Canada’s Round 1, the Rallye Perce Neige, next weekend in Maniwaki, Quebec. The team next appears in U.S. competition February 26-27 in southern Missouri.

The Rally America national championship is a challenging, all-season series comprised of six events across the country. Rally America also organizes the marquee X Games rally contest each summer, airing on ESPN and ABC. The 2010 season will also see the launch of the European-style rally cross discipline mid-year. Comrie-Picard is expected to take on both of these rally series and make a return to the X Games for a fifth year. He will also compete in the Canadian Rally Championship.

Congratulations to Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard and the ACP Rally Team on winning the 2009 North American Rally Championship!

The ACP Rally EVO X is currently running the tried and true AMS Sleeved Short Block, AMS Short Ram Intake kit, AMS Exhaust, AMS Surge Tank, AMS Air Conditioning Delete kit and AMS shifter bushing kits. These products were run all season and put through grueling rally conditions without skipping a beat, a true testament to AMS quality and reliability.

TORONTO, Ontario (ACP RACING)

Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard and the NOS Energy Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution won the North American Rally Championship this past weekend with a podium finish in the season-ending Rally of the Tall Pines.

The win represents the first championship for the Mitsubishi Evolution X, and the first rally championship for NOS Energy Drink.

“This is a terrific result, especially given that we were working on developing the new rally car throughout this first competition season for the Evolution X,” said Comrie-Picard. “But our sponsors and our team came through and we won a very tight championship race.”

A late-season push, including a win at Rally Colorado and a second-place finish at the Rally of the Tall Pines, sealed the driver’s title for Comrie-Picard. Co-driver Jeremy Wimpey joined the team to secure both of these top finishes.

The season-ender was unusually dry and warm and made for very fast speeds and intense competition. Fans and media at the contest noted Comrie-Picard`s aggressive driving throughout the event –  which saw him tearing off bumpers, bending bodywork, and even taking out a finish board — in contrast to his normally tidy style.

“We told ACP to win the championship or leave it in the woods,” said crew chief Eric Vlasic. “He actually did leave some of the car in the woods, but he brought in the championship!”

“We had this car wide-open the whole time,” added Comrie-Picard. “I just wasn’t lifting in most corners or over crests and fortunately, the Ohlins TTX shocks were amazing, the Yokohama tires took the super-high sideloads at 200 km/h (120 mph), and our K&N filter kept the engine safe even through some deep water splashes.”

The team is already preparing for 2010 and looks forward to defending the championship and competing at the X Games for a fifth time.

The NOS Energy Drink motorsports team has had an exceptionally successful year, winning four major racing titles: the North American Rally Championship, the Formula Drift Championship, the Redline Time Attack Series, and the NASCAR Nationwide series.

Rally car racing is considered the extreme sport of automobile racing and is often described simply as “real cars, real roads, real fast.” This all-season motorsport sees drivers and their co-drivers take modified road cars to the limit as they achieve blistering speeds over courses that cover hundreds of miles of gravel, dirt or snow-covered roads.
—
ABOUT THE DRIVER: Andrew Comrie-Picard is a contender for the top of the ranks in the American, Canadian, and North American rally championships and returned to compete in X Games this summer for the fourth time. When he isn’t racing, Comrie-Picard works in film, television, and print media as an automotive expert and divides his time between Toronto, Canada, and Los Angeles, California.

The ACP Rally program is made possible by:

NOS Energy (www.drinknos.com)
K&N (www.knfilters.com)
Mitsubishi Canada (www.mitsubishi-motors.ca)
Yokohama Canada (www.yokohama.ca)
Bully Dog (www.bullydog.com)
Motul (www.motulusa.com)
AMS (www.amsperformance.com)
Works (www.worksevo.com)
Brian Crower (www.briancrower.com)
JE (www.jepistons.com)
Exedy (www.exedyusa.com)
Öhlins (www.ohlinsusa.com)
Pfitzner Performance Gearbox (www.ppgearbox.com.au)
Mishimoto (www.mishimoto.com)
Oakley (www.oakley.com)
Innovate Motorsports (www.tuneyourengine.com)
Team Dynamics (www.teamdynamicsracing.com)
Endless (www.endlessusa.com)
NBB (www.nbblights.ca)
Sparco (www.sparcousa.com)
NGK (www.ngksparkplugs.com)
Seibon Carbon (www.seiboncarbon.com)
Rockford Fosgate (www.rockfordfosgate.com)
Piloti (www.piloti.com)
Skull Candy (www.skullcandy.com).