kilroy - Retirement

Storypost | 2008.01.13

Today featured a long-anticipated Del Mar session followed by a screening of Streets of Legend. Unfortunately the movie did its Sundance award little justice. And there wasn't much in the way of racing. But I have high hopes for Driven.

Story time. Here's what became of E's tire hunt, in his words:

I flew through the drive up atm at wamu on the way out from Morelos and got down to the hood as soon as I could, but no luck, the guy was home. True to his ad, these things were in great shape and the tires were barely used, still had the little hairs on em. No luck getting a deal from the wife then.

The tires, new as could be, were CHAMPIRO 328s. That's not a name I was familiar with, but they looked like an aggressive tread and a rigid pattern, plus, if they don't quite grip like an spt, fine by me. They are 3" larger diameter than my old ones, so it's a really close fit by the shock, but a test mounting showed promise and I scooped them up. One in the trunk, two in the back seat, one in the front seat, "streets of legend" and "redline" on the dashboard, and a pair of red racing gloves on the center console. At this point it was hard to play dumb for the officer that I didn't know what caused my car to fishtail on that last turn.

Let off with a lecture about how he has to tell the parents of punk racers like me that their children died in fiery auto crashes (I think he actually used the phrase "fast and furious" and "ricer boys") I was on my way again.

At home I decided to research the exalted CHAMPIRO 328. to my delight, it seems to be a very well received tire in the drift community, as http://www.driftracingtires.com/tires/tire-store/ gave it a great review. It then dawned on me that driftracingtires.com only sells champiro, made by GT radial, their only brand, and that the rest of the site doesn't exist (hit the home button). Well, I guess I got taken. This is kind of like the "powersauce news break: powersauce bars are now more awesome than ever" sponsored by powersauce. At least if they bill themselves as a drift tire, they have half a chance of performing as such.

Turns out GT RADIAL is an Indonesian company, manufacturing in china, that did contract work for japan, Pirelli and was recently aquired my michellin. I am thnking they are sort of like the scorpion helmet of the tire world. Chinese copy of Japanese design that is well executed but doesn't have the name recognition, racing sponsorship or premium price of the japanese equivalent.

E: so, you going to help me carry in my rims?
I: oh, what did you get?
E: went up to 18s
I: they're gonna look ghetto!
One hour later:
E: I finally found new wheels with good tires
K: what kind?
E: 18 inch, my last ones were 17s
K: they're gonna look ghetto...

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