News

News

New Drift Web Site Goes Live!Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire, LLC Offers Fans Exclusive Drifting News and Potenza Information

Nashville, Tenn. (June 8, 2006) - The drift performance of the Bridgestone® Potenza™ RE-01R can be seen on the track and now on the Web. Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire, LLC (BFNT) is pleased to announce the launch of a new Web site devoted to drifting and the Bridgestone brand: www.bridgestonetire.com/drifting.

The new site aims to highlight the Bridgestone brand’s involvement with the introduction of the “art” of drifting to motorsports fans across the globe. Drifting is a sanctioned motorsport, which requires drivers to skillfully maneuver their vehicles into well-executed, controlled slides at high speeds through a marked course.

The Bridgestone brand entered the 2006 Need for Speed™ Formula Drift competition spotlighting its “extreme performance” Potenza RE-01R performance tire. The Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R features a semi-slick shoulder block that provides lateral stiffness for advanced cornering force and grip on dry surfaces as well as a wide center rib for outstanding initial handling response for any street or track.

The Bridgestone brand has an impressive track record of success at the highest levels of motorsports with numerous victories in Formula One and Champ Car racing. This is an exciting time to move into the fast growing sport of drifting, which is wildly popular in Japan and is starting to generate an enormous amount of buzz and excitement among motorsports enthusiasts and tuners in the United States.

Visitors to www.bridgestonetire.com/drifting can find product and size information about the Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R tire, a dealer locator, drift news, driver spotlights, point standings, track-side image galleries and links to other racing championships’ sites, such as the D1 Grand Prix, Formula D and Formula One. The Web site will also offer site visitors opportunities to download wallpaper featuring Bridgestone teams.

“This season marks an important milestone in the motorsport history of the Bridgestone brand,” said Phil Pacsi, executive director, consumer tire marketing, BFNT. “We are celebrating our first season as an official sponsor of teams in the Formula D series, and also marking our inaugural season as a presenting sponsor of the Formula Drift Series. And our new Web site is a wonderful tool, which makes a wealth of information readily available for the public, as well as to the media and those of us involved in the motorsports industry.”

To view the new site, please visit: www.bridgestonetire.com/drifting.

About Formula Drift:
Entering its third season, Formula Drift, produced and wholly owned by Irvine, Calif.-based Formula Drift, Inc., continues to expand into new markets as the first and only sanctioned and recognized North American professional drifting championship series (sanctioned by SCCA Pro Racing). A well-established sport in Japan for more than a decade, Formula Drift, Inc. and its sister-company Slipstream Global Marketing, Inc. were instrumental in bringing the first official competition to the United States in 2003 at the Irwindale Speedway (Irwindale, Calif.)

About Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire, LLC:
Nashville-based Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire, LLC is a subsidiary of Bridgestone Americas Holding, Inc., whose parent company, Bridgestone Corporation, is the world's largest tire and rubber company. BFNT develops, manufactures and markets Bridgestone, Firestone and associate brand tires. The company is focused on wholesale and original equipment markets, supplying passenger, light truck, commercial vehicle, off-road, motorcycle, agricultural and other tires to its customers in North America.