Tokyo - The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., announced today that its support for the "Asia Cross Country Rally 2011" - the largest FIA-certified rally in Asia - to be held from August 6, through August 11, in Thailand and Cambodia. Yokohama Rubber has supported the event for 11 years in row, beginning in 2001.

This year, Yokohama Rubber will provide GEOLANDAR tires for 4 x 4 vehicles in the adventure class (staged as the sports class last year) where the general public can feel the excitement of racing. Yokohama will also support many drivers, including Show Aikawa, who will participate in T1-1 class（modified commercial gasoline vehicles）for the first time with the Show Aikawa World Rally Team, with Fumio Nutahara as his co-driver/navigator, and Takuma Aoki, who has participate in the rally since 2007. (Nutahara usually drives with ADVAN Team Nutahara, which Yokohama supports.)

The Asia Cross Country Rally was begun in 1996 to promote international goodwill and friendship among countries in Asia. Compared with the Dakar Rally (formerly known as the Paris-Dakar Rally), now held primarily in a South American desert, and the Baja 1000, in Mexico, the Asia Cross Country Rally route is a very severe course encompassing many different kinds of terrain, including dirt, swamps, deserts, jungles, mountain roads and river-crossings - a total of about 1,900 kilometers. This year, it will start from Pattaya, Thailand, and finish at Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Several dozen teams from Asia and Europe are scheduled to participate. From Japan, four teams and five vehicles will take part.

Show Aikawa (center), Fumio Nutahara (right) and second-vehicle driver Norihiro Yamamoto (left), striking a pose in front of one of their vehicles