Battle Cross Premiere Nov 17th.

Battle Cross, premiering on November 17th at 10pm EST on SPEED, takes action motorsports to a never before seen level of extreme as the top drivers race for speed and style on the most challenging courses imaginable.

“Steel Yard Edition”, the premiere episode of Battle Cross, pits 2011 Rally America champion David Higgins against his Subaru Rally Team USA teammate, X-Games star Dave Mirra in identical Subaru WRX-sti rally cars on a track that twists and turns through a working steel mill.

Stacy Keibler hosts the event and top rally driver, Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard provides his point of view as the show’s expert commentator. Produced by Rob Cohen, the top action director and creator of the “The Fast and the Furious” franchise, Battle Cross was created to attract a young adult audience with the intense visual excitement of 400 horsepower cars competing on challenging courses that combine spectacular jumps with high-speed precision maneuvers.

This exciting contest features two rounds of competition between the two rally stars: Round One is a lap of the Battle Cross course scored by time. Each driver gets two attempts to score a fast time around the difficult course. Round Two is a two-minute freestyle session scored for difficulty, creativity, precision and style by two expert judges; drifting champion Samuel Hübinette and rally driver Stephan Verdier.

With a new and unique competition format, a course that lives and breathes pure havoc, and the most skilled drivers on the planet going at breakneck speeds, Battle Cross is poised to become the bright star for the future of racing.

Stephan

Since his teenage years, Stephan has been involved in the racing world. At the young age of 17 in his birth country of France, he competed in a go-kart championship finishing 8th in the nation. In 1993 stephan came out on top after competing against 1200 applicants in the Brigdeston Driver search, then went on to compete in various formula races, winning nothing less than 5th place. Rally came next, beginning at CRS championships in 2001. Driving a 1988 323 GTX, stephan ended up placing 2nd in the PGT class. A few years later in a 2002 Subaru WRX, he began to compete in the SCCA Werstern State Rally Championship’s PGT class. After numerous podium finishes and being the first PGT team to ever win an event overall, Verdier and his team took home the championship win. The following year, he was again the domineer in his class with 4 wins. In 2005, stephan ran Pikes Peak Hill Climb in the Autosport Engineering’s 2005 WRX STI, winning the open class, overall in the rally competition and the hill climb. Starting in 2006, Stephan jumped into drifting with a brand new Nissan s14, he battle amongst many drivers and performed great for his first year. In 2008, Verdier finished 13th in the formula Drift championship and 13th at the Red Bull World Championship. In the 2009 season, Stephan his in the top 16 drifters in USA and won his first event overall at round 6 Sonoma. As now in the 2010 Formula Drift season, Stephan is 13th in the championship with 4 events to go. He also competed at the 2010 X-Games 16 in the SuperRally event. Aside from the racing Stephan is also a precision/stunt driver for commercial and movie. He has worked with Audi, Porches, Ford, Dodge, Subaru, Hyundai, Mitsubishi for TV commercial and as an instructors and professional driver for launch of new models.