Nuzzo Motorsports / Unichip North America Partnership

Nuzzo Motorsports, campaigning three MINI Coopers at the Grand Am Cup 200 at Daytona International Speedway this January, announced a partnership with Unichip North America, makers of a plug-and-play piggyback engine control unit (ECU). Nuzzo and Unichip have agreed to a multi-race partnership, focused on building brand awareness through livery applications and outreach in the MINI community, as well as performance benchmarking and testing, using the Grand-Am Cup MINI Cooper S as a marketing platform.

Unichip, a custom-programmable, plug-and-play ECU, allows users to extract maximum performance out of their cars – and their unique engine modifications - using an infinitely-tunable interface. The result of installation and tuning of a Unichip in a given car is a unique calibration that harnesses the power of all aftermarket modifications to an engine, such as cold air intakes and modified headers. Totally re-programmable and custom tunable, the Unichip guarantees car owners maximum performance, while leaving no electronic footprint detectable by an OEM scan.

Nuzzo and Unichip will work together to develop the perfect engine performance characteristics of a race-tuned MINI Cooper S, using the same street-legal product in the race car that customers can buy for their street cars.

Tony Nuzzo, lead driver and team principle of Nuzzo Motorsports said, “We’re thrilled to welcome Unichip North America to the team. They’ve got a product that we believe in, and are eager to use the platform that Grand-Am Cup and MINI racing provides for getting their name out. We’re looking forward to working with the proven talent and technology at Unichip. They’ve demonstrated an enormous depth of know-how when it comes to getting the most out of the MINIs and we can’t wait to get our cars out competing in Grand-Am Cup this year.”

Kim Ziebell, Marketing Director for Unichip North America said, “We’re pleased to announce our support for Nuzzo Motorsports and their racing MINI Coopers. Racing is a new marketing exercise for us, but we believe that by teaming with Tony, one of the foremost MINI technical gurus – and the guy who’s willing to take the fight to the more powerful sportscars out there – we’ll demonstrate to the enthusiast community the performance aspects of our product. We’re looking forward to seeing the Unichip brand out on the track at Daytona, and are excited to do some performance benchmarking in the Nuzzo MINIs to demonstrate how well our product holds up under the stress of endurance racing.”

Tony is the owner of Nuzzo Motorsports which is beginning its fourth year campaigning the MINI Cooper S. Tony began racing in Porsche Club and drove his first professional race in 2001 in a Rolex Series GT Class Porsche finishing sixth in class and tenth overall. In 2002, Tony finished Third in the Drivers Championship in Grand-Am Cup’s STII Class and was named 2002 Rising Star. In 2003 Tony began campaigning the MINI Cooper S in Grand-Am ST class and in 2005 earned MINI to its first professional podium finishing third at Watkins Glen co-driving with Steve Pattee.

To learn more about Unichip, visit http://www.unichip.us

To learn more about Nuzzo Motorsports, visit http://www.nuzzomotorsports.com