Mt Tam I am's Driving Journal

Originally Posted by Mt Tam I am

I was driving in the first real rain of the year coming back from San Francisco at the end of the Golden Gate Bridge is a slight left. Bump in the pavement? Thud/bump sound and My rear end felt like it was in the air and I was forced to make a quick correction and wondered what just happened. Was it a flat? I looked at the TPMS light and it was not on.

I drove slowly got to work and asked a tire guy to look at my tires. He said they were fine.

On Saturday I drove 30 miles round trip and was white knuckling it the wole way. I'd ask my gal if she felt that and she thought it was the wind gusting. No such luck. It was like a 15 mile drift until we got to the banquette where Johanes van Overbeek* spoke.

On the way home it was more of the same until I hit a huge puddle and hydroplanned like a SOB.

When I got home and looked the next day I am showing steel belts. The tires are shot and I have zero tread on the insides due to the negative camber. This has now determined that I will not drive on racing slicks in the future.

The tire guy looked at my tires awhile ago and figured they would still be fine.

Moral of story: Look for yourself and do not reley upon others.


*Johannes van Overbeek From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search Johannes van Overbeek (born April 14, 1973) is an American race car driver in the American Le Mans Series. He currently drives an HPD ARX-03b for Extreme Speed Motorsports.

Career[edit]Johannes raced go-karts as a child, and began racing sedans at eighteen. Since 1996, he has competed in several racing series in North America, including the Speed World Challenge, the American Le Mans Series, and Grand-Am. In 2007, he won the Porsche Cup, and was ranked as the top non-factory Porsche driver in the world.[1] He finished third in 2008. As of 2013, he has eight wins in the ALMS. He was the only driver in ALMS to finish in the top three of the driver's championship every year from 2004 to 2008. In 2009 he drove for Flying Lizard Motorsports. He switched to Extreme Speed Motorsports for 2010. With codriver Scott Sharp van Overbeek finished 2nd in the 2012 ALMS GT championship in a Ferrari 458 GT2 with 2 wins for ESM. Johannes has competed in four 24 Hours of Le Mans races, finishing sixth in GT2 in 2008, fourth in 2006, and third in 2005.

Johannes lives in Oakland, California with his wife and two sons.

Originally Posted by JARblue

Woah! Glad you're ok

How long was it since the tire guy said they were ok until Saturday?

I just purchased a digital tread depth gauge earlier today from Amazon. But then, I don't drive on slicks

Originally Posted by JARblue

Woah! Glad you're ok

How long was it since the tire guy said they were ok until Saturday?

I just purchased a digital tread depth gauge earlier today from Amazon. But then, I don't drive on slicks

Originally Posted by Mt Tam I am

Thursday. He did not actually look. He looked in December and thought they were fine then so they still were. I will not hold this against him (as I should) but I will not forget, nor let him forget, this either.

Nice purchase. Lincolns head on a penny may be too old a gauge.

Originally Posted by Mt Tam I am

I bought the tires and just replaced the rears. What a difference. I can't floor it and spin the tires in every gear. Hooray. Instead I am propelled forward.

I had dinner plans at my home with my mom and had been held up at work. I left work with the new tires and with damp roads could drive faster. I was late so I kept my speed up when a quarter mile from home saw a slow moving car ahead, closed a bit further and realized that's mom. I thought she was going to pull over but did not.

As she was leaving she said she had seen someone coming up behind and said he's in a hurry then' "Hey thats my son, I know where he's going so I don't need to pull over." Cool beans.

We had a great evening too.