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Andrew 'ACP' Comrie-Picard and ACP Racing win the North American Rally Championship
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.
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"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.
PaddockTalk Perspective
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