jeep wrangler off-road

Ride-N-Drive Test Results

wet vehicle dynamics areaCooper Tire’s ride-n-drive event is an opportunity for the media to test all terrain tires and see how they behave in tough conditions. In this case, we’d be testing Cooper Tire’s DISCOVERER A/T3 and DISCOVERER S/T MAXX.  Now remember this is a tire test, not a suspension or gearing test, so we did not get turned loose on a wild Rubicon Trail off-road adventure.  We did get placed into situations that could demonstrate tire performance and handling.

driving on wet vehicle dynamics areaThe first test placed us on a 14 acre wet vehicle dynamics area (skid pad to you and me) that tests how well tires behave under wet, slick conditions.  We would be driving two rigs.  One equipped with BFGoodrich T/A KO tires, while the second rig was equipped with DISCOVERER A/T3.  The instructions were simple, drive the course out-lined by orange cones, complete a couple of laps remaining safely in control and see how fast you can comfortably complete the course.  While driving, notice how the tires allow you to drive through the corners and brake without loosing traction.  Of course you bring a bunch of gear-heads together and put up a lap time clock…  Yeah there is a chance it may get competitive.

jeep in mudDriving around the course with the BF Goodrich, we could feel the rear cutting loose in the corners and the front wanting to  push into the orange cones rather than track through the curve.  With the DISCOVERER A/T3 at the same speed we were able to hold the corners better and maintain control…

On the last corner… of the last lap…  yeah we wanted to know what it was like to throw a rig into a turn, far exceeding the speeds conditions warranted…  mud trackThe resulting 360 degree spin that sent orange safety cones flying in all directions can only be described as heart pounding…  Then after restarting the engine and driving into the staging area I could hear a voice call out… Nice, but that wont help your lap time!

The mud field is one part Texas clay, three parts water and hundreds of yards long.  I’m not a huge mud fan.  On our off road adventures, mud is something separating you from where you want to go not the playground you’re heading too.  That means having a tire that can drive smooth and stick to rocks but still clear mud and keep plowing forward when you have to cross the swamp to get to the other side.  Climbing behind the wheel I aimed the rig straight, gave it a slow steady peddle  and watched to see how it went.  The tires kept going, they held their line without slipping around or spinning wildly.  It was fairly effortless jeep mudto remain on target down the length of the mud field without getting bogged down.  Of course it was fun to watch the mud fly as other drivers got into the mud with a little more gusto.  Although the driver will remain nameless…  if you want to watch professional videographers cringe, driver hard and fast at them through the mud, turn sharp at the last minute and send a wall of mud flying directly at ten’s of thousands of dollars of video equipment…  But the shot that results….  priceless.
http://youtu.be/d6H1y08KMo4

Place a dozen little fountains atop a 30  degree concrete incline and you can find out how well tires hold when gravity is working against you.  One lane of smooth concrete (think garage floor), another grooved concrete and a third lane with exposed softball sized rocks.  Driving up the hill at a snails pace the tires crawled up the smooth surface without slipping or spinning. Over the rocks, the DISCOVERERs reached from rock to rock biting into them and motored the rig up.  Then on the grooved surface they never missed a beat, even when we came to a complete stop half way up. The DISCOVERERs allowed us to easily regain forward momentum.

muddy jeep on inclineA question we had was around sidewall strength.  On an off road adventure, a tire’s sidewall takes a lot of abuse: airing up and down, carrying extra weight and the ever present rocks reaching out to cut them open.  Ali showed us the v-groove area where they test sidewalls.  The v-groove’s width means as they drive a rig through it, the sidewalls of the tire are carrying the weight of the rig. They will spend hours driving back and forth to see how the sidewalls hold up.

v groove tire testAfter completing a day behind the wheel, we learned that the DISCOVERER tire is capable of taking you through the mud, can climb steep inclines and keep it’s manners on wet roads.  With any luck we’ll have a chance to strap a set of DISCOVERER ST Maxx to our rig and taking them through one of our adventures and give you a long term report.

Want more pictures from the event?  Check out our photo spread in this July’s FJC Magazine.

And what do you think about our comment in their video…  Too Much?

 

mustang GT on skid pad

Cooper Tire and the Z Girls

zimmerman agency girlsIt all started with an email… “Cooper Tire, one of the top tire manufacturers in the country is interested in your blog”, the note went on to say, “We are sending an exclusive online community to an event coming up, called Ride-N-Drive… We would love to see you fit this into your adventures!”

We may be a lot of things but part of an “exclusive online community” is not usually what rolls off the tongue when describing our collections of road trips and off-road adventures. Midlife crisis gets thrown around more often than not. But before we knew it, emails were exchanged, flights books, rooms arranged and carry-on packed.doug of cooper tires

The Ride-N-Drive event is designed to allow the media to test Cooper Tire’s DISCOVERER AT3 and S/T MAXX for themselves under all sorts of conditions. This is also an opportunity to learn about what goes into developing a rugged, go anywhere tire and how engineers test their new products before they ever go into production.

San Antonio, Texas, is where they host Ride-N-Drive. A short drive from Cooper Tire’s proving grounds located in Pearsall, Texas. In order to test all the conditions that a tire faces, the facility includes a 2 mile oval track, a 1.3 mile dry handling circuit, a 14 acre wet vehicle dynamics area and an off-road course spread around the 1,000 acre grounds.

ride-n-drive mediaTire companies have a problem, their products are absolutely necessary in our daily lives and for most of us they are a grudge purchase. Think about it… When was the last time you said to yourself… “I can’t wait to spend money on new tires”. So a lot of them try hard to sell you on an image of trophy trucks screaming through Baja and smoking hot girls wearing nothing more than a logo and a smile (political correctness takes a holiday). Not that there is anything wrong with hot chicks and trophy trucks, but for us tires are more important than that… Which is why we want to share what went on behind the scenes at Ride-N-Drive so you can see what makes Cooper Tire a unique company and why this was experience unforgettable.

Cooper Tire thinks differently about their tires and their customers. They understand that they make tires for people, not cars. People with families who drive to school plays, soccer games and family reunions. People who want to explore the back roads and not stop when the asphalt ends. They understand that their tires can get you there, but its your life that drives you to explore. But a company is more then its marketing and each of the folks we met from Cooper’s (and we met a bunch) seemed to genuinely embody the idea that life is a road trip.pre-runner truck

It takes a lot of confidence in your product to invite folks to try your tires under harsh conditions and then tell everyone openly what they think.  All of the Cooper Tire folks were eager to turn over the keys and let us decide for ourselves.

I was first up to ride along for a couple of hot laps with Johnny Unser on the circuit track. For those who don’t follow racing, Johnny is the real deal… Johnny has raced the IndyCar series, won the 12 hours of Sebring, competed in the 24 hours of Daytona eight times and finished second in the 24 hours of Le Mans. Our personal favorite are his three wins in the grueling ALCAN 5000 mile rally.  These days, he spends time working with Cooper Tire engineers, testing and providing feedback on tire designs.Ali Aljibouri, Cooper Tire professional driver

Put a Ford Mustang in the hands of a professional race car driver and he can do some amazing things with it… Johnny had the car flying down the straight away, snaking through S-curves and getting its drift on around tight corners. Bouncing around in the passenger seat, grinning ear to ear as the orange cones blurred… this was a “closed course professional driver” ride of a lifetime for me.

Yes we drove the Baja 1000 course in our rig, but we barely broke a sweat compared to what Cooper Tire had in store for us next. Their proving grounds is filled with different off-road terrain zones designed to see how tires handle in and transition from sand to loose rock to hard pan and back again. I climbed into the Baja pre-runner with Ali Aljibouri, Cooper Tire’s professional test driver and took off for the dirt. Ali worked the skinny peddle like he meant it and in no time the pre-runner was up to 100+ mph, giving us a real Baja race experience. Three miles of dirt, sand and rock were over as quickly as it began but the adrenaline rush lasted for hours.scott brady overland journal

Throughout the event, safety was a prime concern.  Everyone checked to ensure safety belts were buckled, helmets fit and that we kept hydrated.  Tires are the only part of a vehicle that is in contact with the road and with 8,000 some pounds rolling down the highway, safety needs to be top of mind when engineers are designing new tread patterns and selecting silica compounds that can increase gas mileage, last longer and improve handling.  The focus on safety reminded me how often I take for granted that off-road adventures do come with danger and it is good to know that Cooper Tire people think about it everyday.

The event included evening activities and dinner at a couple of very nice steakhouses (remember this is Texas). Growing up, I spent countless time with Motor Trend and poured through Auto Trader looking for cars. The Overland Journal was a big inspiration on our first Arctic adventure. Now, I am hanging out with Scott Brady, Brian “Woody” Swearingen and writers from dozens of publications and on-line properties such as IH8MUD, Gunaxin and Today I Found Out. I get that they put their pants on one leg at a time but there is something humbling about breaking bread with the guys who inspired me to step out and explore.

downtown san antonio at nightIt’s midnight and hot out.  Looking over the balcony to the street seven floors below, I feel the urge to explore. The lobby is empty and the valet post abandon as I stepped out onto the street and began wandering downtown San Antonio armed with my camera and a curiosity for anything new. The river walk is a network of walkways along the banks of the San Antonio River, a story beneath the downtown streets. Lined with bars, shops and restaurants the river walk provides an opportunity to stroll the night away when you’re still on pacific time.

I could hear hip-hop, the blues and dubstep seeping from the bars along the way. On a Tuesday night, most of the patrons look to be from somewhere else as they make a final sweep of the bar stools, before spilling out and heading back to their hotel. Travel, bars and hotels…  what a combination.

Street musicians play for any number of reasons…  but after midnight they play for themselves.  A doorway becomes an amphitheater for a  saxophone slowly wailing into the dark.  The bus stop bench serves as a shrine for an old guitar plucker as his raspy voice tells the story of the woman who broke his heart, sold his truck and shot his dog….  Just another Texas love song.tower of the americas san antonio texas

As Chris in the morning once said “it’s not the thing you fling but the fling itself” and it is not what you find but that you go out looking.  I walked around the Alamo, gazed up at  the Tower of the Americas (San Antonio’s version of the space needle), watched old glory fly above and listened to conversations of strangers as they strolled by. The 6:00 am wake-up call would be coming way too soon but in this moment of a quiet walk on a hot dark night, exploring was exactly what I needed.

It takes a lot of planning to put together Ride-N-Drive. The Zimmerman Agency was responsible for event coordination, logistics and making sure we all stayed hydrated in the Texas heat. The Z-Girls, as they liked to call themselves, were a half dozen smart, professional young women who kept us on task and the schedule moving comfortably along. In a word they looked out of us. Sure it’s their job but they went beyond. They were organized and ready before we dragged ourselves down to the lobby at the crack of dawn and than up late with last minute planning the next day’s activities.  The Z-Girls brought their own brand of fun to the event making it as much about new friends as it was about tires. kress building san antonio texas

Remember the Alamo… (That is not rhetorical) Men gave it their all, literally, for what they believed in. We found this same spirit in everyone we met from Cooper Tire and Zimmerman. They made Ride-N-Drive an great experience for us and one more adventure. Mental note to self… Got to start using better media terms now that we are part of the club… But we’re still not going to wear long pants.

Next we’ll share with you how the ride-n-drive tire tests turned out…

kitsap county hills

Day Tripper Diary

hula girl Sure 5,000 mile road trips are amazing… But if you remember to look, a trip around the corner can be just as much an adventure. The other day we went out to scout locations for a video shoot. Looking around at local state parks, old run down buildings, city alleys, or any funky looking place.

Really just an excuse to get out, roll down the windows and feel the road. Somewhere along the way we started to see the same old places in a new way.

If you ever want to make a stir… roll into a Jeep dealership, park your FJ Cruiser square in the middle, hop out with a camera and start snapping pictures of their blow up Hula Girl on the roof. But a 30 foot tall hula girl… Really, what are the chances. And of course we introduced them to Hula Betty.

shellfish harvestShellfish abound on the beaches around here in the northwest and when the season is open, families come together for harvest. Wandering down by sound, we found families, everyone from kids to grandmas, working the beds.  I sat there for what seemed like hours, just watching them dig, listening to the gulls and thinking how this same scene was playing out on coasts all around the world.

bremerton portSome cities are separated by tracks.  We live on the other side of the sound. The trailer park we call Kitsap County. For decades it was only vacation cabins and the Navy base.  Things on this side of the water have changed over the years but the shipyard waterfront is still an anchor for visitors with its museums, docks, restaurants and shops… stray from the boardwalk and you find out just how long a hangover lasts from a no-growth policy instituted in the 80’s.  The water front has perked back up but there is still a long way to go.

The county is richer for growing up around the base.  The richness of the area does not appear in housing values or car dealerships but in the cultural diversity that surrounds most any port town.  Drive through Bremerton or Silverdale and the faces you’ll see reflect all the continents of the world.  mother and childSailors have always traveled to exotic ports around the world, fallen in love and settled down with their families back here when their discharge papers came through.

Between here and there is Green Mountain. Weaving through 6,000-acre working forest is 13 miles of trails mostly used by mountain bikers and horseback riders.  A gravel road will take you most of the way to the top where a short hike delivers amazing views.  No one really uses the road, which means it’s a good opportunity to slowly meander and look for bear and dear who call the woods home.

hiking trailThere is a horse camp halfway up Green Mountain that offers a few camp sites on a first come first server basis.  It’s a dry camp with a couple of holes in the ground for outhouses. This is the kind of camping I enjoy… Rant coming so you may want to skip to the next paragraph: I’ve always thought of camping as getting away from it all and simplifying life, even if it is only for a weekend.  But RV travelers pay top dollar for the hookups these days, camping is big business. The places I used to enjoy in my youth were just a flat spot at the end of long dirt road.  The nice ones had a hand pump for potable water. These secluded spots now have blacktop, yellow lines, electricity, showers and firewood for sale with only one or two tent sites stuck in between the trailers. There is nothing wrong with RVing and I know all things change…  However, when I hear how state parks are closing because they can’t afford the up keep, I wounder if returning a few of them back to a more rustic, pack it in/pack it out, no frills setup wouldn’t help a little with the budget woes.  Of course the campers who leave behind their garbage and feel the forest is their personal junkyard don’t help any of us.

We didn’t find a location that quite fit the bill… but the day provided the break we were looking for… quiet places, rolled down windows and the feel of the road.