Winners choose Avon
Seven of the top ten competing cars at last Saturday’s Brighton Speed Trials were run on Avon tyres, including the winning car, a Gould Puma which set a time of 9.45 seconds for the quarter mile sprint.
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Avon and ATS Put Mini Up For Grabs
Customers who buy two Avon tyres from participating ATS Euromaster outlets will get the chance to win a new MINI Cooper. The car in question is worth £12,500 and comes in Chilli Red paintwork with Union Jack roof decoration and white bonnet stripes, plus of course a set of Avon Tyres. Five runners-up will receive a Sharp DAB portable digital radio, and all entrants will get a free Avon baseball cap. The competition runs from 1 August until 30 September.
Cooper’s newly-enlarged tyre and vehicle test centre features enhanced 4×4 capabilities
Across the Texas prairie, in a place where the staff occasionally encounter rattle snakes, Cooper’s 1000 acre Tire and Vehicle Test Center can be found. Originally constructed in 1999, the site has recently been upgraded through the addition of 4×4 and off-road testing facilities. Tyres & Accessories travelled to San Antonio to experience Cooper’s newly enlarged test centre first hand.
The most recent developments at Cooper’s Tire and Vehicle Test Center (TVTC) prove that the $13 million it originally spent on the facility was just the beginning. Now the company has 4×4 testing capabilities and it is likely that there will be further additions in due course. For now the centre’s primary work is product testing and competitor benchmarking.
Avon is the Choice of Winners
The winner and the two runners up of this year’s European Custom Bike Building Championships all used Avon tyres.
A total of 64 top class builders from Europe and beyond entered 71 bikes in the AMD ProShow, held at the Phoenixhalle in Mainz, Germany.
The winner was Thomas Hebermann of Habermann-Performance in Germany with his S&S shovelhead-engined chopper named ‘Caligo’. The machine was fitted with an Avon Venom AM42 300/35R18 88V rear and 100/90-19 57V Supervenom front.
Under Inflated Tyres Cost UK Motorists £1 Billion
Avon Tyres believes motorists are wasting more than £1 billion a year and increasing the risk of accidents by not checking tyre pressures. According to the manufacuturer’s calculations, up to 90 per cent of vehicles on Britain’s roads do not have the correct pressure in their tyres.
This, in turn, is believed to have a knock effect that stings consumers to the tune of an extra £230 million on new tyres every year. Researchers said that at any one time, 90 per cent of vehicles had at least one tyre under-inflated by 10 per cent of the recommended pressure. This equates to a 15 per cent reduction in the life expectancy of the tyre or an extra £5.12 per year cost to the driver – or £230 million if extended to all UK drivers.
Avon Renews Racing School Contract
Avon Tyres has renewed its association with Castle Combe circuit and has agreed a new contract to provide tyres to its racing school.
The tyre manufacturer has been involved with the track for 50 years making it the longest motorsport sponsorship in the world.
UK Press Honours Avon’s Vipers
In recent months the motorbike consumer press has heaped praise on Avon’s Viper Sport (see T&A February 2005) and Supersport tyres. Journalists from MCN, Superbike, Bike and TWO all attended the European launch of the Viper at the Catalunya GP circuit near Barcelona, Spain in February. The tyres were tested on a variety of bikes, which together clocked up around 3,000 miles on one of the world’s fastest and demanding circuits.
Tyre Companies Invest in China
According to a report from Bloomberg, foreign direct investment in China rose by 9.5 per cent in the first quarter. It attributes this to companies such as Avon Products and Goodyear Tire & Rubber that are expanding in the market and furthering their attempts to tap rising demand in Asia’s second-largest economy.
Avon Takes Australian Control Tyre Contract Again
Avon Tyres Racing and the Ford Racing Formula Ford Australian championship will continue their association due to the recent selection of the Avon ACB10 Semi Slick as ‘control tyre’ for a further six years. Completion of the agreement in 2010 will make Avon’s 15-year control tyre selection the longest such arrangement in the world, says the manufacturer.
Commenting on Avon’s involvement in the Australian Formula Ford championship, Julian Baldwin, Avon Tyres’ director of marketing and motorsport, said: “As part of Avon’s worldwide support of the Formula Ford class we are very happy to be associated, once again and on a continuing basis, with the Formula Ford Australian championship.”
RMA Introduces Training Courses
The Retread Manufacturers Association is to introduce a series of specialist training courses as part of a development programme aimed at increasing the range of value-added benefits to members.
As a first step, the Association is re-introducing its City and Guilds Part 1 – Workshop Practice courses for the 2005/2006 study year. These correspondence courses, aimed at operatives in retreading plants, are being administered in conjunction with Newlaw Associates and cover a full range of processes in retread plants including inspection, drying, buffing, repairing, cementing, hot cure tread preparation, sidewall veneer application, hot cure building and precured retreading as well as other relevant topics such as matrices, basic materials, legislation and health and safety issues.
Avon Helps Develop ‘Super Caterham’
As part of a long-standing relationship with the maker of some of Britain’s best loved sports cars, Avon Tyre Racing has developed special ultra-high performance road and race tyres for the 155 mph Caterham Seven CSR.
Cooper Names New Director of European Sales and Marketing
(Akron/TR) Cooper Avon has named Steven T Kersh as director of European sales and marketing. In his new role, he will oversee sales and marketing efforts for European operations headquartered in Melksham, England. The appointment will become effective on 1 April, 2005. Mr Kersh began his Cooper career in 1993 as a management trainee. In 1995 he was promoted to export sales customer service coordinator, and since has served as an export sales trainee, export sales territory manager, regional manager of export sales and most recently as manager of export sales.
Bridgestone Replaces Avon as GP2 Supplier
Bridgestone recently took over as the sole tyre supplier of the GP2 motorsport series. Already a supplier to Formula 1, the Japanese company has decided to become the sole supplier of GP2 which has replace F3000 as the primary support series for F1. Previously Cooper’s Avon brand was the GP2 series supplier.
Avon Unleashes the Viper
“The new tyre range represents a major advance in sports tyre design and is the result of years of testing combined with original and innovative engineering concepts. We are proud to deliver this three-tier offering of 19 sizes to the motorcycle market and have great confidence that it will be enthusiastically received” – Avon’s motorcycle product manager, Pete McNally, can only be that enthusiastic about one thing – the Viper has finally been unleashed.
Cooper Names New SUV/LT Tyre Development Manager
Cooper Tire and Rubber Company has named Marcus A Hancock as manager of sport utility vehicle/light truck tyre development. His responsibilities include managing and leading the development of new SUV and light truck products for the North American market.
Originally from England, Hancock joined Cooper-Avon Tyre at Melksham, in 1989 as a tyre design and development technical assistant. He has also worked as both a design engineer and a senior design engineer at Cooper-Avon. Mr Hancock has also been a senior development engineer of performance tyres at the Cooper tyre plant in Findlay, Ohio.
