Waterloo, Ontario -- What do you get when you take 60 teams in all sorts of cars and throw them at some of the twistiest roads in northern Ontario through 10 hours of overnight competition? You get The Subaru Ontario Winter Rally (Feb. 15). It's the grandfather of Canadian winter rallies and Two AM Rallysport takes on the challenge this weekend in their Yokohama sponsored MINI Coopers S.

The classic MINI has a long and storied history in rally racing so it's fitting that in its first year in Canada the new MINI is already out to make a name for itself on the rally scene. Two AM Rallysport is proud to be one of the first to be campaigning such a car.

Team driver, and Kitchener-Waterloo resident, Andrew Miller fills us in, "We chose to take on this challenge in the MINI for a few reasons. The car is strong, light and powerful enough. But most of all the car handles like a dream and that'll give us the edge over the larger heavier AWD cars."

Winter rallying is unlike any other form of motorsport, it's a sport where precision navigation and skill full driving meet to challenge teams of driver and navigator, and where what you drive is just as important as how you drive it. The concept is simple; follow a predetermined route through the back woods around Bancroft Ontario, match a series of average speed set by organizers for 10 hours of driving.

Teams are penalized for being either late or early at random checkpoints throughout the night. Miller explains, "Winter driving is the ultimate challenge in car control and trying to stay on time, all the time, all night is very demanding. I couldn't do it without my navigator Ian." Ian Macarthur, a Mississauga native adds, " We're up against a lot of tough competition. Many of the top teams are in high horsepower all-wheel-drive vehicles. So it's a matter of making sure we stay on route and timing things very precisely over the event."

The Ontario Winter Rally has been around in present form since 1985 and goes back as far as the 60's as the "Canadian Winter Rally". This year 60+ teams from Ontario Quebec and the northeastern United States will take up the challenge. With all of the top teams entered the winner will likely finish with less than 1 minute in penalties. This means the Two AM Rallysport team will have to be in top form to win. Andrew is optimistic. " We had a shakedown event a couple of weeks ago. From that we know car is perfectly suited to the task and the tires are ideal so we hope to take the podium."

Two AM Rallysport competes with the help of their sponsor, Yokohama tire Canada.