Mister C

I attended my first HPDE with PCA Potomac a couple of weeks ago. It was a complete blast and I already hooked. Potomac ran a great event and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

The skid pad was my favorite part but also led to my first track loss. I was able to recover several times from an oversteer skid and boy was that fun. The last time, however, I could not reel her back in and went off the pad a bit sideways and dropped my right rear tire into the mud. I checked the car out afterwards and she seemed fine.

The next time I had her out was driving to work yesterday. I noticed that she was pulling to the right on acceleration. I chalked it up to tire pressures being too high (big warm up this Spring) and was kicking myself for not checking them before driving in.

I remembered this as I was walking to my car last night to drive home. I did a walk around and noticed that the right rear tire looked low—really low. Crap. I figured I picked up a nail or something on close to new tires. So I drive to the gas station across the way fill up the tire with air. Now I can hear and feel the leak. It was coming from the bead between tire and rim. Leaking pretty good I might add. Oh no. I figure I must have bent the rim but I don’t remember hitting anything.

I call a nearby Tire Plus. I hate taking my car to places like that but I don’t have a choice now. And they are open and not busy.

I convince the manager to let me drive the car into the bay. I could just see one of their guys getting way more clutch than he counted on and plowing the car into the back wall.

I am not going to leave my baby so I hang out just outside the bay door. Tom, the mechanic, does not look too happy with me hanging around but I chat him up and show him some respect. We get along just fine.

Tom unseats the tire form the bead and discovers dirt jammed deep into the bead. AHA! It was the skid pad off. I must have jammed dirt into the bead in the process.

$33 and 30 minutes later and I am back on the road. I was lucky. This has to be the cheapest track incident fix out there. I kinda gives me the ******* that I drove her like that. Gulp.

As to exactly why it pulled to the right I figure that the deflated right rear tire had a smaller circumference than the left rear fully inflated tire. So I had a bigger wheel on the left pushing the car to the right. Without limited slip diff it probably would have been an even worse pull.

Lesson: never ever ignore what your car is telling you. If it is acting differently there is a reason and you must check that out immediately.

I never heard of dirt infiltrating and breaking a bead like this before--learn something every day.

Streak

You learned cheap! Good for you.

Soooo, was your first DE all you hoped?

Mister C

Yes, very cheap lesson. I spent more than that on gas alone.

The HPDE was awesome. I haven't had that much fun in many years. I have already signed up for the July 20-21 DE with PCA Potomac and the BMW HPDE on May 11-12.

Good to meet you during the event Streak. Hope to see you again soon.

Streak

You're DOOOOOMED! The track bug has bitten!

Glad you had fun. That is the event goal for sure. Make sure you sign up early as it seems we were over subscribed pretty significantly!

TXE36

The first time I spun a car on dry pavement was on the street when I was twenty years old (long time ago). Two lane blacktop on the outside of a blind corner, semi coming the other way. This moron in a Ford pickup was passing, I went off to the right on the shoulder and then immediately tried to get the car back on the road (big mistake). It felt like the hand of God grabbed the car and spun it clockwise and I shot across the double yellow into the left shoulder gravel. Was pissed and went after the guy who went off road through a farmer's field. When I stopped the car I could hear air hissing - I had gotten rocks between the rim and the tire bead.

Then I started to think about what could have happened. I'm lucky the idiot also did not try the shoulder - head on would have resulted. I'm lucky there was nobody following the truck - a 50-60MPH T-bone would have resulted. It still makes me shutter to think about it.

Fast forward to last year and I had a bad off to the inside of T8 CCW at TWS. Knocked the right rear tire off the rim and put a good amount of gravel inside the tire. The rim is bent. When I got home, I pumped it up on a lark and it reseated with the rocks inside -- it's still holding air today, rocks and all. The forces involved must have been huge judging by the effort my tire guy exerts dismounting a deflated tire.

Moral of the story, it is certainly possible to force stuff into the tire bead or peal a bead right off the rim.

Off the

Glad to hear your damage was minor.

-Mike

jerome951

C,
Since you're in Silver Spring, I encourage you to form a relationship w/ Radial Tire. Great service, pricing, and advice, and you won't get a scowl from the technician doing your tire work if you hang around in the shop. They're also a big supporter of PCA Potomac and are always servicing high-end cars.

Trust me, the service, pricing, and advice they offer will come in handy because you'll be buying tires... a lot..... ;-)

Gofishracing

you are lucky you didn't ruin the tire by driving on it- even a few blocks can ruin them

Streak

+1,000,000

Radial Tire is awesome for us fortunate locals

Mister C

Yes, doomed for sure. But it is a fun kind of doomed.

Thanks for the tip. I have been a TireRack customer for years but do like to support the sponsors. I gave OG racing my harness and helmet business and they took good care of me.

Yes, I count myself very lucky.

So how might I check if the tire is ruined? It is a Michelin Pilot Super Sport if that makes any difference (probably not). I do plan on triple digit speeds (on the track, of course) and want to stay safe.