The sole tyre supplier to the FIA World Rallycross Championship has been named official tyre partner to a new programme for budding rallycross drivers, the 2017 RX Academy. Cooper Tire Europe is, says marketing communications manager Sarah McRoberts, “delighted to be associated with the new RX Academy and assist young drivers learning their craft in the exciting sport of rallycross.”
Cooper Tire Europe’s latest football challenge tested the reaction speeds and accuracy of Arsenal Football Club’s squad. The tyre manufacturer is the official tyre partner of the club, and has collaborated with the club on a series of promotional videos, which have cumulatively registered nearly a million views on YouTube.
Cooper Tire Europe has extended its support of the World Rallycross Championship. In addition to being the official tyre supplier and associate partner of the FIA series for the fourth consecutive year, Cooper has become the title sponsor of the 2017 World RX of Hockenheim. Cooper has supported World RX since its inception in 2014, and supplies eight dry and eight wet tyres per Supercar driver at each of the 12 rounds. Cooper also became the presenting sponsor and tyre supplier to the second tier RX2 International series – previously RX Lites – for this season earlier in the year.
Avon Tyres held its first Mascot Challenge, celebrating its English football club sponsorships. Derby County’s Rammie, Swindon Town’s Rockin Robin and Bristol Rovers’ Captain Gas competed against each other in a series of fun physical tests featuring Avon tyres. Click “Read More” to see the video of the event, featuring commentary from beloved football pundit, Chris Kamara.
Cooper Tire Europe has challenged three Arsenal FC players to compete in its latest precision test: football darts. Coinciding with the BDO Lakeside World Professional Darts Championships, the official tyre partner of Arsenal set up the contest for midfielder Granit Xhaka, winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and goalkeeper Petr Čech. Starting the game with a score of 301, the players aimed the ‘dart balls’ at the giant dartboard in a race to zero, and the chance to be named Cooper’s Football Darts champion. The resulting action was recorded for the latest Cooper video to feature Arsenal (available below).
Cooper Tire Europe has become the presenting sponsor and official tyre supplier of the RX2 International Series, the rebranded feeder series to the FIA World Rallycross Championship. Formerly known as RX Lites, the series has been renamed the RX2 International Series presented by Cooper Tires.
Cooper Tire Europe has opened a new 211,000sqft UK warehouse, with the capacity to store 400,000 tyres, in Swindon. Cooper stores Cooper and Avon brand tyres at the Spectrum Building, with the new facility already being fully operational. The Spectrum Building, designed by British architect Norman Foster, first opened in 1982 and was used as a backdrop in the James Bond film A View To A Kill in 1984.
In 2016 Cooper Tire continued to support the World Rallycross Championship and European Rallycross, also providing tyres to Dakar Rally veteran Xavier Foj, who has taken on the challenge an impressive 26 times. Meanwhile, Avon Tyres burnished its reputation as master of classic motorcycle race tyres, underlined in the Isle of Man this year with victories for Avon in both the Senior and Junior Classic TT races, for John McGuinness and Michael Dunlop respectively.
EKS has clinched the 2016 FIA World Rallycross Teams’ Championship as team-mates Mattias Ekstrom and Topi Heikkinen racked up enough points during qualifying in Argentina – the final round of the season held last weekend – to scoop the coveted title ahead of Team Peugeot-Hansen.
With just one round to go in the 2016 FIA World Rallycross Championship, Sweden’s Mattias Ekstrom has been crowned the new champion after scoring enough points on Cooper tyres last weekend to secure the title. Driving for his own EKS rallycross team, Ekstrom finished fifth at the German RX round in Buxtehude, and is now 30 points ahead of two-time World RX champion Petter Solberg in the driver standings. Even if Ekstrom does not complete the final round of the championship in Argentina in five weeks’ time, a maximum score for Solberg would only draw the Norwegian level and Ekstrom would still win on the countback of victories.
Cooper Tire Europe has announced its headline sponsorship of Rallyday 2016. Europe’s premier rally car show is an annual event held at Castle Combe Circuit in Wiltshire, taking place this year on Saturday 24 September. The show features star drivers and cars, entertaining thousands of fans in the paddocks, 4×4 Zone and on the track for the 16th year running.
A key marketing component of Cooper Tire Europe’s sporting sponsorships has been its Precision Challenge videos. In two previous instalments, the tyre manufacturer challenged players from Arsenal, to whom Cooper is the Official Tyre partner, to hit targets made of tyres. In the third such challenge, Cooper brings together drivers from the World Rallycross Championship, for which it is the exclusive tyre supplier, and three more Arsenal stars to compete in another difficult test of accuracy.
Cooper Tire Europe has launched a new warranty scheme that covers three of its product lines. Purchasers of a set of four Cooper Zeon CS Sport, Cooper Zeon CS8 and Cooper Zeon 4XS Sport tyres can take advantage of the Cooper Promise which, at no additional cost, offers accidental damage coverage for up to 30,000 miles or 48,000 kilometres. The Cooper Promise warranty also includes a 30-day/600 mile road test, during which customers can return one or more tyres, provided specific conditions are met.
Avon Tyres has revamped its “landmark” Avon bridge at Castle Combe Circuit in Wiltshire. The brand is marking more than 60 years of its sponsorship deal with the circuit, which is only 11 miles from Avon’s base in Melksham; in fact, a recent renewal of its sponsorship will take the brand through to 75 years of association with one of the fastest tracks in the country.
Avon Tyres will become the Official Tyre of Everton Football Club in the Barclays Premier League 2016/17 season, with three other partnerships giving the brand exposure at every professional level of the sport in the UK. The brand joins its sister Cooper brand in football sponsorship, the latter having been the Official Tyre of Arsenal for the last two seasons.
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