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.

You're going to do WHAT?

It is March 1st 2011 and it is just about time to make this "official".

I've lost my mind!
After participating in 6 previous One Lap of America events (as a guest driver), I was always subject to various levels of compromise and I have never formed my own team.

I had plenty of fun on each of my previous One Lap outings, but taking on the challenge of being a team leader has been a burning goal. The only way to "slay that dragon" is to make it happen, accept the various risks, and to enter my own team - in my own car!

2011.5 M3 "Competition Package" Sedan (E90).
It is an incredibly capable car car WITHOUT aftermarket modifications.  

The Challenge:

This competition shapes up differently each year, but with the economy suffering in 2009 and 2010, virtually unmodified E90 M3 Sedans finished in 10th and 9th in the overall OLoA standings. Both of those teams featured very skilled drivers... In 2009 I discovered along the route that my skill set compares favorably with those drivers.

The Motivation:

Over the years, I have been fairly content NOT entering competitions or otherwise quantifying my driving against others. The 2009 One Lap (in TC Kline's one-of-a-kind Z4 Carbon Coupe) gave me enough of a taste of success that I could no longer resist the urge to make a go of it on my own.
It appears that my latest-generation 2011.5 M3 sedan will get a "wee bit of exercise" this spring.

The Mission:

The mission is to HAVE FUN, bring it back in one piece and demonstrate that the current generation M3 V8 is the best all-around (unmodified) performance car that BMW has ever sold. This statement amounts heresy for those BMW "purists" who feel that this 4th generation M3 is "too big", "too heavy", and too far removed from the legendary BMW M car heritage. All of that esoteric carping is mostly bunk. I have confirmed all of my own biases over the last few years, but this vehicle is really the current state of the art for under 100 grand.

The Team:
After exhaustive searching, I've hand-selected two exceptionally talented One Lap of America teammates. My on-track co-driver is a wildly accomplished and gregarious One Lap veteran, and our transit specialist is my closest automotive confidant. Our trainee is a keen enthusiast anxious to get his first taste of the world's original sportsman road course driving challenge event.

The Schedule: The latest revision of the Tire Rack One Lap of America 2011 is published on the event homepage: http://www.onelapofamerica.com/currentEvent/Schedule.do?eventId=30

2011's "East of the Mississippi" route includes a combination of tracks from our collective previous experience, and a few exciting new challenges:

- Summit Point Raceway (West Virginia, where my serious driving passion was ignited)
- Carolina Motorsports Park (South Carolina, where I scored a top 10 on the first day I ever drove it)
- The reconfigurable road test course @ the BMW Performance Center in Greer, SC
- The freshly repaved legendary High banks of Daytona International Speedway (my first time)
- Circuit Grand Bayou Road Course in Belle Rose, LA (an oddball gem of a road course)
- The exceptional, world-class Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds (Birmingham) Alabama
- Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Illinois

The event begins and ends on the skidpad/test track of the world headquarters of The Tire Rack (http://www.tirerack.com/features/motorsports/one_lap.jsp) in South Bend, Indiana. The commute from Philly to South Bend is about 650 miles by itself. The week long event route insanely snakes 3,527 miles around the eastern USA from April 30th to May 7th 2010. After the awards banquet, we will have one more leisurely 650 mile commute back to Spring City.

If this sounds like a lot of driving for one calendar week, I must point out that by historic One Lap standards, it isn't. Our event route in 1998 was over 5,700 miles in a week. Moreover, my 1998 teammate the Baron Rene von Richthofen was (and happily remains) certifiably unmanageable.

"I'll tell ya, these kids today are soft!"

Stay tuned to this blog for a more formal introduction of our complete 3 man "power trio".
Let's just say you don't need to be crazy to do One Lap of America, but it helps.