This past Friday morning I had the chance to spend a couple hours at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville as a participant in the Bridgestone Firestone Drive & Learn Event - The Classroom Behind the Wheel. I joined about 30 other people, mostly Bridgestone employees and sales reps for a informative session that involved not only introduction to three new tire products but also a lot of track time behind the wheel of 2008 BMW 328i's and 2008 Volkswagen GTI's.
I want to lay out several facts about the morning so that they can't be twisted and used against me later. First off, on the way to the event, I managed to get a speeding ticket for 69 in a 55 zone in what turned out to be major revenue fund raising event for the Nashville Police Department. Over a dozen police cars both marked and unmarked were strategically placed out of sight for the sole purpose of issuing tickets meant more for raising money than protecting anyones safety.
Second fact I want to share with you is that twice on the autocross course that we drove I managed to spin the GTI. If the BMW rewards good driving and helps to mask poor driving, the GTI is not forgiving forcing you to wait out the seemingly endless turbo lag to get into the power and once you are there compelling you to modulate it accordingly because when it hits, it hits strong and since the turbo lag seems to consume so much time, the reaction is to over compensate for it thereby planting your foot further into the throttle which then produces more thrust than desired once the turbo comes online.
With that being said, twice I managed to spin the GTI on the course to the chagrin of the supervising driver in the passenger seat. Of course my own laughter at the act did little to mitigate the fact that he thought I was a complete and total idiot for not simply feathering the throttle as he suggested I do. Since the laps were not timed, I figured it was OK to have a little fun while on the track. I will say that I was a lot smoother in the BMW than the GTI, but the GTI is certainly the car that elicited the bigger grin.
We were introduced to three new tires at the event, the Bridgestone Potenza G019 Grid which we drove on the VW GTI, the Bridgestone Potenza RE760 Sport which the BMW's wore, and finally a ultra high performance Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R which we drove on the BMW during a relay style timed event.
To compare the tires on the cars, the BMW's also wore Yokohama S-Drive tires that we were able to compare against the RE760 Sport in a back to back comparison on the track and the GTI's were outfitted with Michelin Pilot Exalto R/S to again compare to the new Potenza G019 Grid.
It was an interesting exercise and one that clearly showcased the technology built into the new tire offerings from Bridgestone, however I noticed a bigger difference between the Yokohama versus Bridgestone as fitted on the BMW's than I did on the competing tires on the GTI's. Of course I managed to spin the GTI twice, once on each set of tires.
After some time spent on the track, we had a 20 minute seminar about tire safety and I learned several things. The most important take away from this session was the fact that as new cars shy away from spare tires, some of the systems installed in place of the traditional spare could in the long run end up costing the consumer more money.
As an example, my BMW M3 does not have a spare tire, rather a compressor and a sealant meant to get me to safety. The tire manufacturers have come together in unity in denouncing the use of said chemicals in the tires, and have instructed their employees to discard of a tire once a chemical sealant is detected in the damaged tire. This of course would head off the ability to patch the tire if the damage is not severe. The other drawback to the chemical system combined with the compressor is it does not do anything if the damage is on the sidewall of the tire. At that point you would have to seek out a tow truck for help.
Finally, if the item causing the puncture is dislodged, the likelihood of a decent seal using the chemical sealant provided diminishes greatly again probably involving the assistance of a tow truck.
Anytime you can spend some time at a track running hard in others peoples cars it is hard to pass up. Since I was writing the check for replacement tires, the opportunity to run fast and hard is appealing, and Bridgestone Firestone put on a nice presentation that was both informative and fun. These events are held throughout the United States, and I bet the next time you replace some tires with Bridgestones if you aksed to participate in a Drive & Learn event, the rep you are working with just might let you.