Test drive Successful team – Bridgestone and Mercedes Driving Events
Test Drive

Test drive Successful team – Bridgestone and Mercedes Driving Events

Test drive Successful team – Bridgestone and Mercedes Driving Events

In 2013, the Japanese company Bridgestone and Mercedes Driving Events signed an agreement to work together. We were lucky enough to attend one of the events organized by them - pilot training in winter conditions in the Alps.

The snow-covered mountain ranges of the Alps near Kitzbühel rise rapidly and surround the Saalfelden fortress in Austria like ramparts. Impressive arrays, as if stuck right in the blue sky, look like the scenery of a giant theater, in which the quarry at their foot resembles a stage. Today, the main characters here are cars. The design of the entire set is the work of a division of Mercedes called Driving Events, whose events have been a joint venture with the tire company Bridgestone since 2013 - in fact, this is the kind host of the event to which we are invited. Where as extras, where as actors, journalists also take part in the event - which, as it turns out, is one of the many events offered by Driving Events and is called Winter Advanced Training Austria. A huge polygon, repeating the relief, reminiscent of a lunar landscape, acquired bizarre shapes as a result of the mining of the mountain range. It belongs to the Austrian technical supervision organization OAMTC and has become a center of attraction for various motorists. The design hotel Gut Brandlhof, which also accommodates golfers in the summer, fits into this authentic landscape like a gem, with ideal conditions for learning the intricacies of dynamic winter driving. In a huge meadow behind the main road leading to this place, a winding three-kilometer track forms, the surface of which is covered with ice and provides ideal conditions for skidding.

Adhesion limits

The first exercises of our “training” lead us there. A polite German instructor asks us to turn off the stabilization systems of the test A 45 AMG. This allows the skid to be controlled and the electronics to intervene at a later stage when forces are pulling the car too far into the corner. Thus, it is possible to set all the limits of the laws of physics at speeds up to 100 km / h, under the expert supervision of a German woman who does not stop giving instructions. “Follow me,” she pleads sternly, and flies back down the interurban road at a speed of at least 120 km/h—far above the legal speed limit. We return to the quarry where, on another circular route, a special machine takes care of covering the pavement with some mixture of small pieces of ice and a layer of water. This becomes the perfect environment for swinging the doors forward - an incredible pleasure that you want to continue indefinitely, and which requires precise throttle, as in the rather powerful C 63 AMG Coupe.

Here, the high-speed obstacle trails take on a completely different character with their icy water and snow cover, and the cone path becomes especially impressive when the stabilization system is turned off and the light arrow shows you where to go at the last moment. let. The exercise should be done with the brake applied, whereby the car changes its mass balance and the rear becomes a difficult component in this equation. Such exercises, bypassing a conventional obstacle, but entirely on icy asphalt, demonstrate how thin the limit of safe movement is and how just a few kilometers per hour more than a car becomes a completely uncontrollable physical object.

A small but rather steep hill in the middle of all these test tracks has become a natural testing ground where all the electronic systems of the car work hard to ensure the slope of the snow cover. Added to all this are tracks for testing the ABS, tracks for dynamic driving on snow and for high-speed traffic.

Tires for all conditions

However, one of the characters of this whole drama seems to go unnoticed, but without his competent participation, all this would be impossible - as it happens in real life. The sheer power of all the AMG versions of the various Mercedes models wouldn't matter and the efforts of all the electronic driver assistance systems would be useless if the cars didn't have the right tires. These high-tech creations take care to mediate between the force exerted by the engine and the road surface, which, as my grace has repeatedly found, was quite uncompromising, and despite the fact that my winter boots with large soles did not provide the conditions for a guaranteed stable vertical position on two legs. The contract between Mercedes Driving Events and Bridgestone should be a fairly convincing testament to the quality of the Japanese company's products - given that the department's activities include not only events of this kind, but also a number of adrenaline-filled events around the world. from high-speed drifts on the frozen lakes of Sweden and off-roading on snow and ice, to desert marathons in the Sahara and Namibe, and 34-day hard drives in South America. This, in turn, means that the tire manufacturer must, in addition to the appropriate qualities, provide a wide range of products - from classic winter tires to sports cars, from high-speed asphalt tires to crushed stone models, from suitable cylinder tires. for driving on sand, for blocking tires in mud and swamps.

Text: Georgy Kolev

Add a comment