The relatively new international rally series, Intercontinental Rally Challenge, was inaugurated in 2007. It isn't a FIA's world championship series - there are only four FIA world championships, including the World Touring Car Championship for which ADVAN is appointed as the official tire supplier - but the series is run under the sanction by FIA and is operated by one of world's major sports TV stations, Euro Sports.

There are three key characteristics in IRC. Firstly, the organizers have focused on cost savings for competitors and this has attracted more and more entries every year. As the costly World Rally Cars are banned in the series, the core categories are Super 2000 and Group N. To fill up the performance gap between those two categories, the size of air restrictor for Group N cars was increased in 2010. For 2011 season, the Group R4 specification cars become eligible for the series, so the existing Group N cars can be converted to R4 with performance enhancing modifications on the suspension and cooling system, as well as a lighter minimum weight.

Secondly, the series receives a lot of media exposure because a TV station is involved in its operation. In addition to the worldwide broadcasting of every round, heavy promotional efforts are made by providing movie streaming or selling roundup video DVDs. The strong media exposure directly leads to a growing number of followers and makes the series more attractive for the car manufacturers, the related industries and sponsors. In fact, as many as eight marques, including Subaru from Japan, have been registered as the manufacturers of four wheel drive cars and it produces the fierce competition between a wide variety of cars.

Finally, the every event of the series is unique and individual. In contrast with the World Rally Championship in which all events have to have identical format specified by FIA, IRC tends to respect history and tradition of each event. The series includes legendary rally events, such as Monte Carlo Rally, Tour de Corse or Rally Czech Zlin, which have played important roles in the history of rallying, and each of these events are run while preserving their distinctive traditional characters.

In collaboration with Fuji Heavy Industries and its motor sport arm, Subaru Technica International, Yokohama Rubber makes a genuine effort to participate in IRC in 2011, using Subaru's WRX STI spec C. The Japanese tire manufacturer has already been involved in the series as one of the official tire suppliers but now takes one step further to compete on the stage of an international rally series.

The featured drivers appointed for this challenge are Toshihiro Arai and Fumio Nutahara. Having driven for Subaru for years, Arai has won the FIA Production car World Rally Championship twice and is the only Japanese driver who became the world champion of an FIA sanctioned series to date. The multi-time Japanese Rally Championship winner, Nutahara, knows everything about ADVAN rally tires and has an illustrious career in overseas rallies as well, including a victory in Monte Carlo Rally in 2006 which made him the first Japanese to achieve it.

The tires to be used are ADVAN A053 for gravel surface and ADVAN A006T for tarmac. Both types have plenty of track records in international rallies and have supported Yuya Sumiyama's Asia Cup victory in the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship last year. The prototype of A053 also contributed the PWRC wins in Japan and Cyprus in the past.

Subaru WRX STI and ADVAN rally tires which are playing active roles in rallying all over the world, plus two leading Japanese rally drivers. The challenge to the IRC series by this "Japan Power" collaboration is already winning a lot of attention from rally fans around the world.