Look into some weathering pigments, too. Tamiya has some, they come in 3 colors per set and there are several different sets. I've never used them, but I've heard good things about them. Mig pigments are supposed to be really good, too. The Doog did a tutorial on here in the armor forums about Mig products where he weathered nearly an entire vehicle with them. There are also some other brands of pigments, but those are the 2 most well known
I'm pretty sure that all of the pigments can be applied the same way, with a dry paintbrush. They can also be mixed with water or alcohol to make a thicker mud-like goo.
Also, there was a Scale Auto article a while back that had a nicely weathered rally car in it, I'll have to search through the collection to find it though. It had some good tips, you may want to email Scale Auto to see if they can find it and if you could purchase it.