Subaru Rally Team USA is pleased to announce today the selection of VP Racing Fuels products for their 2010 rally campaign.  The partnership includes VP Fuels being designated the Official Fuel of Subaru Rally Team USA.  Subaru Rally Team USA, managed by Subaru technical partner Vermont SportsCar, is headed by four-time defending Rally America National Champion Travis Pastrana and BMX legend Dave Mirra. The team is scheduled to compete in the six event 2010 Rally America National Championship, ESPN’s X Games 16 Rally Car Racing event as well as Rally America’s three all-new European-style RallyCross exhibition events this fall.

For the first time since its inception in 2006, the Team O’Neil Rally (TON Rally) will be held in the Spring. The competition will take place Saturday, May 8th. The TON Regional Rally has typically drawn between 15-30 competitors and 250+ spectators each year. However, with this year’s event taking place at a much more hospitable time of year, Team O’Neil is expecting their biggest turn out ever. “Winter rallies are fun, but we’re expecting the warm weather to be a bigger draw for both competitors and spectators,” explained Kathy Moody, organizer of the Team O’Neil Regional Rally.

The nation’s top teams are coming to the Rally in the 100 Acre Wood set in the beautiful woods of the surrounding Salem, Steelville, Potosi, and Viburnum areas of southern Missouri. The 100 Acre Wood Rally is the second rally in the Rally America National Championship Series. Fans can expect a fierce battle for the overall lead.  Four-time defending champion Travis Pastrana of Subaru Rally Team USA comes to the 100 Acre Wood Rally as the overall National points leader after winning the Sno*Drift Rally last month in Atlanta, Michigan.

Rally Car Racing returns for X Games 16 as one of the most exciting events on the schedule. With increased ticket sales and television ratings, Rally Car Racing is a fan favorite. Drivers from the Rally America National Rally Championship series will once again be invited to compete in ESPN’s Summer X Games 16 competition, the leading action sports event broadcast live on ESPN. Rally America, Inc. will be the sport organizer for the X Games 16 Rally Car Racing event. The selection criteria for the twelve athletes receiving an invitation for Rally Car Racing at X Games 16 is as follows:

Officials with Rally America, Inc., the premier sanctioning body for Performance Rally competition in North America, announced today that HAWK Performance Brakes has joined a growing list of sponsors in the popular Rally America Contingency Program for the 2010 Rally America National Rally Championship. Based in Solon, Ohio, Hawk Performance brand disk brake pad products are owned and manufactured by Wellman Products Group, the world’s leader in severe-duty friction products. For nearly a century the Wellman Products Group has engineered and manufactured severe-duty friction products for brakes, clutches, transmissions, and driveline components.

Officials with Rally America, Inc. announced today that EXEDY USA has returned as a sponsor of the popular Rally America Contingency Program for the 2010 Rally America National Rally Championship. Based in Belleville, Michigan, EXEDY is the undisputed world leader in sports and performance racing clutches. EXEDY Globalparts Corporation (USA) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the EXEDY Corporation of Japan. EXEDY (Japan) was founded in 1923 and its clutch manufacturing business and prominent brand name Daikin Clutch are known throughout the world for supplying quality powertrain products.

DC Co-Founder, Chief Brand Officer and Rally team driver, Ken Block, debuted his 2011 Ford Fiesta complete with a fresh new design and graphics this past weekend at the Sno* Drift Rally in Atlanta, MI. Check out Ken’s new ride and footage from this weekends race at http://auto.dcshoes.com/features/ken-block-monster-world-rally-team/. A collaborative effort between Ken and DC, the new car features an overall paint drip graphic that is an evolution from designs on Ken’s prior cars. For the finishing touches, Ken selected Huck Gee, known for his evil skull illustration and Kid Robot toy, to create a personalized KB logo treatment on the car including Huck’s signature skull re-done into a block shape for a play on Ken’s last name, and a # 43 plate on the side of the car.

Able Planet joins the Rally America team as a Contingency Sponsor of the 2010 Rally America National Championship to provide financial support to the organization and award valuable prizes to this year’s competitors who will be eligible to receive a wide range of award-winning headphones and headsets with Able Planet’s patented technologies that provide superior sound quality and speech clarity. Kicking off the 2010 Rally America National Rally Championship season, 2009 Super Production National Champion Jimmy Keeney returns to defend his title with new co-driver Jason Grahn as they gear up to compete in this year’s Sno*Drift Rally in northern Michigan. Driving the Able Planet Super Production Rally Car, a 2007 Subaru Impreza WRX STi, the Keeney/Grahn team plan to enhance last year’s strategies that helped Jimmy and Melissa Keeney win the 2009 Rally America Super Production Championship.

Subaru of America, Inc. announced today increases to its contingency award payouts for Subaru drivers in the 2010 Rally America National Championship.  The Subaru Rally Support Program, which was created in 2005, continues to be the most lucrative contingency program in North American rallying, with over $20,000.00 available per event for eligible Subaru drivers to earn. The program will again focus support on the popular Super Production class (SP) within the Rally America National Championship where the top finishing eligible Subaru SP driver can now earn $7,000.00 at each round.

It may be the end of the 2009 Rally America season, but that does not mean the fun has to stop! Rally America has teamed up with DC Shoes to host a 4 week photo contest this December and January! Every week fans will vote for their favorite pictures and the top 10 rated photos will be sent to a judging panel to advance a weekly winner to the grand prize round for a chance to win DC Shoes auto wear!

Travis Pastrana scored his fourth-consecutive driver’s title after another incredible season on the 2009 Rally America circuit for Subaru Rally Team USA. The action-sports veteran took the Jon Woolf Cup with six outright wins in nine starts and also earned the X Games 15 Rally Car Racing silver medal. Christian Edstrom, who returned to Pastrana’s side in 2009 after a year-long hiatus, took the Grant Whittaker Cup as the top co-driver.

While many motorsports sanctioning bodies are looking for ways to shrink and save, Rally America, Inc., the premier sanctioning body for performance rally competition in North America, is expanding and growing. Rally America today announced three European-style rally cross events in 2010. The three events will be run as exhibition events in 2010 but there may be more on the calendar in 2011. European-style rally cross combines disciplines from road racing, short-course off-road racing and X Games-style rally car racing. It’s the action sport of motor racing.

Subaru Rally Team USA driver Travis Pastrana wrapped up his winning 2009 Rally America season with yet another victory this weekend at the year-end Lake Superior Performance Rally. “This was a great rally for us,” said Pastrana. “It’s one of my favorites because it’s a more technical rally than some of the others on the circuit and it’s great to drive.” Heading into this event, Pastrana had already secured the Rally America driver’s title for 2009 and said his objective was to earn as many stage wins as possible. With nothing to lose, he admitted he drove hard and took plenty of risks to win all but two stages – falling only about four seconds short of an outright sweep over more than 120 miles of racing.

For the last 5 years the 9th and final round of the Rally America Championship Series will return to picturesque Lake Superior Performance Rally (LSPR) in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on October 16th and 17th. The peak of Fall colors will be in full force providing a striking backdrop to rally cars tackling the tough gravel roads and the famous Brockway Mountain Stage, a perennial favorite among some the nation’s top rally drivers.

Officials with Rally America, Inc., the premier sanctioning body for performance rally competition in North America, announced today that BFGoodrich Tires has joined them as the presenting sponsor of the 2009 and 2010 Rally America National Championship Awards Banquets. A longtime supporter of performance rally competition world-wide, BFGoodrich builds world-class rally tires which are the choice of many of the world’s top rally teams including many in the Rally America National Championship and various Regional rally events held across the U.S. and North America