Minden, Ontario -- This past weekend saw a MINI Cooper S return to the winner's circle of a road rally for the first time in many years at the Subaru Snowy Safari Rally. After 10 hours and more than 400 Km of overnight competition the Yokohama sponsored, MINI Cooper S of Two AM Rallysport defeated all comers and won the rally over-all with a mere .5 minutes of penalties.

The rally -a test of driving and navigating skills held on twisty narrow back roads in northern Ontario- saw some tight battles, with a tie breaker formula being applied to determine the winner. Waterloo Ontario based, Team owner/driver Andrew Miller explains, "It was tough going, and competition at these types of rallies is fierce. After driving our butts off all night we were tied with the Georgetown Ontario team of Jud Buchanan and Keith Townsend, the organisers then had to analyse the results to determine a winner. Since we had the most consecutive check points without penalty, we came out on top."

The team is very pleased with the result as it came ahead of a group of more than 50 other teams and some formidable cars. " I believe this is the first time a new MINI has won an event like this since the car came to Canada" said Miller, " which is quite something as we are certainly at a traction and power disadvantage over a lot of the other cars running." In fact more than 20 teams starting the event were running in the rally's sponsoring make, Subaru, which employs all wheel drive in all of it's cars. Louis Cabardos, the team's navigator, attributes much of their success against the all wheel drive cars to their tires, "Yokohama provided us with their new Ice Guard 10 winter radials for this rally and they were fantastic! The car just went everywhere Andrew pointed it, and the results prove that a 2 wheel drive car with good tires can still do the job."

The team now readies itself for the Subaru Ontario Winter Rally, taking place Feb. 21st. As this is one of the oldest rallies of it's kind in North America it attracts a lot of top-notch teams from all over. "I'm really looking forward to this next one. It's going to be super tough!" said Miller.

High-resolution digital imagery and team info at www.twoamrallysport.com

Information:
Two AM Rallysport, A-18 550 Parkside Dr. Waterloo Ont. N2L 5V4
(519)-883-8288 Fax (519)-883-0356 twoam@aminnovations.on.ca

Snowy Safari Rally www.pmsc.on.ca
Yokohama Tire yokohamatire.ca