COOPER TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY (NYSE: CTB) today announced a renewed partnership with NOPI Motorsports for the entire eight event calendar of the 2008 NOPI Drift Series, a fully sanctioned national premier drifting event competition. Cooper will be designated a “Drift Presenting Tire Partner” by NOPI for the second year and will showcase the Cooper Tire mobile marketing rig at all NOPI Drift events, including:

Vacation time is over, and the weather is starting to break in a lot of areas around the country. You know what that means don’t you. That’s right race fans; it’s time to hit the track for a new season of racing. Race teams all over the U.S. are preparing for an amazing year and, from the sounds of it, you will be excited to see some of these new racecars at NOPI Events across the nation. 

After seven rounds of the 2007 NOPI Drift Championship Blake Fuller of Sarasota, FL with an impressive driving record of all top ten finishes stood on the podium as the series most consistent driver. This result was even more impressive when you take into account that Blake Fuller acted not only as the driver, but also helped manage the team that ran the series.The 2007 NOPI Drift Championship was extremely exciting to follow as the Braille Auto team led the championship in the beginning of the year and then fought for first place all the way till the final round where a rare car failure left the team watching from the paddock area as the final round unfolded! As the smoke was clearing at the final event in Atlanta Motor Speedway in front of 50,000 fans, the calculators went into action to figure out who would win the championship. In the end, the final goal of winning the championship went to another driver, but Blake Fuller remained on the podium!

Brian Ballard drove his 2007 K&N GM CSI Racing Chevy Cobalt to a second straight NOPI Turbo Street Championship during the NDRA World Finals at Maryland International Raceway.

Ballard ran 9.745 seconds at 137.18 mph and qualified the K&N Filters Chevy Cobalt in the No.3 position. On race day Ballard held a 48 point lead and wrapped up the championship after his second round win with an ET of 9.57 at 149.25 mph. For the Sloatsburg, New York resident this was his fourth consecutive NOPI Championship, and his second straight title in a Chevy Cobalt in the TurboStreet category. Earlier this season, Ballard clinched his first NHRA Quick 16 East crown in the same K&N Filters Chevy Cobalt.

NOPI Nationals is HERE! With the 07 NOPI Nationals event just a few weeks away on September 15th and 16th, the anticipation for the biggest show in the nation is getting unbearable! Each year the number of cars, spectators and vendor’s increases and this year is no different!

There is a ton of excitement going on this year at NOPI Nationals with the inaugural season of the NOPI Professional Drift Series. NOPI has chosen the NOPI Nationals to host the final event of the 2007 season. With the unexpected cancellation of the NOPI Drift Chicago event, NOPI had to make some quick decisions on what they were going to do in regards to points. With all resources being exhausted trying to get the NOPI Drift Chicago event underway or rescheduled, NOPI has come up with a great alternative. The decision was made that the NOPI Drift final event will be double the points and double the cash prizes!

Initally, we required you to run two events to be eligible to compete at the World Finals, but with the cancellation of the Chicago event, we will only require you to have run one NOPI DRIFT event in 2007.

This weekend sets up the stage for the 3rd event of NOPI’s New Professional Drift Series and this event will be paired up with NDRA as well, on June 9th and 10th at Gateway International Raceway in St. Louis. You can be assured that with NDRA and NOPI Drift going on in the same weekend and the same location there will not be one minute without action and entertainment throughout the entire weekend!

“We feel that we bring one of the best event series to the enthusiasts and race teams. With this weekend being a perfect example of how NOPI covers all of the bases at each event that we throw. We decided to pair up our 2 events into 1 monster event for St. Louis, with NDRA and NOPI Drift together, we are sure that each enthusiast will leave our event with a smile on their face! With NDRA racers running some amazing numbers at our last event, the fans are sure to get some exciting action as some of the race teams will be trying to back up the scorching numbers that they put down at Maryland International Raceway.” Says Michael Meyers, President of NOPI Motorsports. “With NOPI Drift in it’s 3rd event, the points standing is starting to look interesting. With the top drivers wanting to keep their points lead, there will be some extremely exciting competition this weekend.”