Back-to-back podium finishes for ACP
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Fans are starting to expect to see Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard on the podium.
The team has earned top results on both sides of the border in September in their Mitsubishi Evo IV.
With the generous assistance of Slowboy Racing, ACP and co-driver Marc Goldfarb finished third overall at the mountainous Colorado Cog rally in the Steamboat Springs area of Colorado.
The high-altitude race typically starves competition engines and leaves them down on power, but a recent Slowboy Racing engine refresh meant ACP barely noticed the elevation.
“We had great power at this race. Our strong finish is proof positive that Slowboy does fantastic engine builds,” said Comrie-Picard.
The team chased factory-backed Subaru driver Travis Pastrana through the mud for two days, setting top times throughout and landing on the podium behind Pastrana and North American championship leader Matt
Iorio.
Just weeks earlier, ACP finished second overall at the Rallye Defi-Ste-Agathe in the Laurentian mountains of Quebec. A conservative drive saw him cross the finish line second to Canadian championship leader Antoine L’Estage.
The course ran the gamut of conditions, from gravel and tarmac to deep mud and water splashes.
“We drove well, but there’s no shame in finishing behind Antoine -- he’s been on fire all season,” said Comrie-Picard. “I think we both benefited from the range of Yokohama tires we ran -- we always had the right tire for every condition.”
Comrie-Picard and L’Estage are both supported by Yokohama.
ACP’s team has proven to be one of the fastest on the continent this year. The privateers won the U.S. season opener -- Sno*Drift -- in Michigan in January over the Subaru USA team. They were also one of only 12 top-tier rally teams -- including WRC veterans Colin McRae and Nicky Grist -- invited to compete in the 2006 Summer X Games in Los Angeles.
In 2007, they expect to run a full season, battling for rally supremacy on both sides of the border. With the support of Slowboy Racing, they will be introducing a new Mitsubishi Evo IX in the coming months.
Fans can catch the team competing on October 20-21 at the Lake Superior Performance Rally in the Upper Peninsula area of Michigan. The rally, based out of Houghton, is known for its late fall foliage and unpredictable weather.
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ABOUT THE CREW: Edmonton-born driver Andrew Comrie-Picard is running a season of selected events in the United States and Canada in 2006.
When he isn’t racing, Comrie-Picard works in television. He is the co-host of the 2006 Canadian Rally Championship broadcast, premiering nationwide later this month on the CHUM network. Comrie-Picard is also the host of the TV show War of the Wheels, which airs its first season starting next week on Global Television.
The Alberta-born, British Columbia-raised Comrie-Picard now lives in Toronto.
Veteran co-driver Marc Goldfarb of Atkinson, New Hampshire, has been rallying for over 25 years.
ABOUT THE CAR: The team fields one of the top Mitsubishi rally cars in North America. The 1997 Lancer Evolution IV is prepared to Open-class
specifications. The Slowboy Racing engine produces over 300 horsepower.
ABOUT RALLY CAR RACING: Rally car racing is considered the extreme sport of automobile racing and is often described simply as “real cars, real roads, real fast.”
The 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 more than 200 kilometres of gravel, dirt or snow-covered roads.
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THANKS TO: Slowboy Racing (www.slowboyracing.com), Yokohama Canada (www.yokohama.ca), Vibrant Performance (www.vibrantperformance.com), Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes (www.sherwin-automotive.com), Inside Track Motorsport News (www.insidetracknews.com), DMS North America (www.dmsnorthamerica.com), Pagid North America (www.pagidusa.com), Piloti (www.piloti.com), Motul New England (www.triplecaution.us), Sparco (www.sparcousa.com), Innovate Motorsports (www.tuneyourengine.com), Griddly Headz Board Games (www.griddlyheadz.com) and WORKS (www.worksevo.com).
