Uh Oh! Ordered the tires... Michelin Pilot Super Sports

In spite of my general feeling about the French and their collective work ethic, I'm a die-hard Michelin fan. When BMW is serious about a performance tire, the "top-dog" Michelin tire of the day is usually original equipment.

Most 2008-2011 M3s came with the excellent Michelin Pilot Sport 2 (PS2 for short).
It is a fine street tire that works in the real world and on wet and dry road courses.

Throughout 2009 I was well able to test them for myself. I was impressed.

My Alpine White 2008 Sedan @ New Jersey Motorsports Park on OEM Michelin PS2 tires, Summer 2009

Briefly leading my friend Gerry Walsh at NJMP Thunderbolt, Summer 2009

The well respected Pilot Sport PS2 is about to be replaced with the Pilot Super Sport:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Michelin&tireModel=Pilot+Super+Sport

They are supposed to be lighter in weight and vastly grippier.

As Ross Perot was fond of saying: "Let's look at the chart!"

Sounds good to me!

It is not lost on me that the new acronym "PSS" sounds a lot like a punctured tire deflating... As the father of a two year old in potty training, it also reminds me of the sound of eager encouragement.

Allegedly, they are in the pipeline, but they will only arrive in the USA (in the sizes we need)
in MID APRIL, which very shortly before One Lap starts on 4/30/11.

Will they arrive in time? I guess that is up to the work ethic of the French.

UPDATE: (YES!)


The tires are shipping on 4/6/11 and they will be installed in time to practice at our Del Val Chapter Driver's school on April 16th-18th.  After all the media and LOFTY claims about this follow-up to one of the best street tires of all-time, I am very excited.


A special "thank you" to Pierre, Serge, Jean and Jacques at the Michelin factory for putting down the truffles and busting these tires out the door for the 2011 Tire Rack One Lap of America.