Track Day Fun: Tire Testing At Firebird International Raceway

Most of you might remember my first track day article featuring “Combfilter” and his road racing IS350. 

As a continuation of the series one of our readers “Chad” was given the unique opportunity to evaluate some of Bridgestone’s latest wares under various conditions.  Chad is a quite competent driver so the thought of him tooling around in everything from a GTI to a AMG63 intrigued me.

 Location

The legendary Firebird International Raceway in Phoenix Arizona, where courses were set up for dry and wet conditions.  Wet conditions in this case meant a severe soaking where tires were tested for maximum adhesion under standing water conditions.  In this case the parking lot probably is best suited real road conditions far better than a billiard table smooth road track.  After all these are road tires not specialized racing slicks so varied road conditions are to expected.

 

The Driver

Chad is a certified gearhead in every sense of the word.  Owning a variety of cars from pickup trucks and high performance vehicles, he knows them all inside and out.  Some of his friends glowingly call him the walking encyclopedia of car facts. This is the kind of guy you call on a bet at 3:00 AM, and ask what horsepower a base Toyota Corolla had in 1996.  He can simply spit out an accurate fact then go back to sleep.  His expertise is not of the track, but more of an educated enthusiast that can more than hold his own in an event like this.
 
The Cars

A variety of cars were on hand to test a number of different tire combinations.  The lineup comprised of the following: 2008 BMW 328, 2008 Volkswagen GTI, and both the Mercedes Benz E63 and the mighty 450+ horsepower C63 AMG.  With this type of variety, there was a little bit for everyone involved.  The first session would be limited to 3 laps each in all tire and vehicle combinations. However other sessions gave more warm up time.

The Event

The first car Chad drove was the BMW 328 with Yokohama S Drive tires on the wet track. While the Yoko it is a decent tire, when pushed hard it became noisy and tended to slide a bit. Immediately after on the same track with the Bridgestone Potenza RE760 the situation was different these tires had more grip and you were now able to go into the tight turns with more speed.

 

The second drive was in the 2008 VW GTI with the stock Michelins Exalto A/S. The course was a mixture of tight turns, high speed straights, long sweepers and a high speed slalom. The Michelins did everything well being a quiet, well handling all season tire. Again as long they weren’t pushed too hard all was good. When Chad took on the GTI now equipped with the Bridgestone Potenza G019 Grid. He could immediately tell a difference. He actually was able to go into the sweeper with a lot more speed and brake later. The slalom is where this tire really shined. The Potenza could do it with a lot more speed and felt more confident in doing it. There was less roll and more grip. The Potenza didn’t seem like an all season tires at all.

 

 

 The last drive was with the Mercedes. This course was devoted to the most drive time in. The E63 wore the Potenza R050's. Drivers weren't allow to disable traction control so it was hard to get a good idea of how well these tires grip. After a couple of warm up laps we got up to speed and were able to put the tires to the test. The tires had excellent traction and were very responsive and little noise. The C63 with the Potenza RE01R's were also excellent on the track. They had a bit more noise than the R050's but had more grip and were able to go into the corners with a little more speed. Chad mentioned that he was amazed how nimble the C63 was under pressure and it was hard to believe the cars were actually sisters.  They felt amazingly different.

 

 Conclusion

 Of course it is easy to say any test like this may cast the best light on the sponsor’s tires.  But in this cases all of tires selected were either standard equipment or direct competition to the appropriate Bridgestone tire.  In each case the Bridgestone option held their own, and in many cases they were a clear cut improvement over the competitor.  

 I would like to extend the invitation for any of our readers to share any test drives, driving events and event automotive sponsored lifestyle event that they may be part of. 

 You never know, you could become future Agent in the wings!