It probably comes as no surprise that the fastest man on ice is a Finn. Nokian Tyres test driver Janne Laitinen set a new world speed record for driving a car on ice on March 6 when he nursed his Audi – shod with size 255/35R20 97 T XL studded Hakkapeliitta 7 tyres – up to 331.61 km/h (206.05 mph) on a 14 kilometre track laid out on the frozen Gulf of Bothnia near the city of Oulu.
Pirelli has announced that it will fit its Diablo Supercorsa tyres to the Ducati 848 Evo in the Ducati 848 Challenge – a new official partner of the MCE British Superbike Series 2011. Ducati is a long-time partner of Pirelli, with “an exclusive 100 per cent original equipment fitment deal.” Pirelli also recently agreed terms with the British Superbike and Supersport classes for sole tyre supply until 2015. The 848 Challenge will visit five British Superbike rounds and also go on tour to Monza and Assen. The Diablo Supercorsa has “broken numerous records in this year’s British and World Supersport Championships,” says Pirelli. Full 848 Challenge Series listings can be found below.
While the majority of the 250,000 documents contained in the largest leak of government records in American history focus on diplomatic and political commentaries written by the US ambassadorial network, at least one of the wires published by the Wikileaks website sheds light on behind the scenes discussions on the Obama decision to impose import tariffs on Chinese-made tyres.
A document dated 29 September 2009 and classified as secret, reports that US deputy secretary of state James B Steinberg (Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s chief adviser) discussed the tyre tariffs alongside policy objectives for Iran and North Korea with Chinese foreign minister He Yafei.
Following a good number of years managing the tyre maker’s in-house vehicle fleet, Michelin’s John Stack recently took the decision to retire. Rather than appointing someone else to take over the role, Michelin chose the outsourcing path and launched a competitive tender process to find a new service provider. This tender was won by Fleet Support Group (FSG), and the Wiltshire based company has now taken over management of Michelin’s 340-strong fleet and begun providing a range of vehicle related services including its occupational road risk management system.
French tyre giant Michelin has launched the company’s latest tyre for the ultra high-performance segment, the Pilot Super Sport, at an event in Dubai. Attending the launch alongside Michelin representatives were spokespeople from Porsche and Tüv Süd; Michelin said it had “worked closely” alongside the auto manufacturer – as well as with BMW M and Ferrari – in developing the Pilot Super Sport, meeting its “challenging original equipment specifications”, while the testing organisation has recently produced a comparative study of the tyre and its competitors, determining it as “the fastest tyre on the market”.
Pirelli recently renewed its tyre supply commitments to the British Superbike (BSB) and Supersport Championships, and now the company’s Metzeler brand has been confirmed as the control tyre supplier for the 1000ccc and 600cc National Superstock championships for a further five years. The German based manufacturer says these two “important production based classes within the prestigious MCE British Superbike series” have great importance as they offer Metzeler the chance to demonstrate the quality of its ‘over the counter’ tyres.
The last race of the 2010 MotoGP season was an emotional one, marking the departure of Valentino Rossi from the Fiat Yamaha team and of Casey Stoner from Ducati, as well as a number of other riders. Conditions all weekend were good although the mornings were cold and right from the first practice laptimes were fast; in qualifying the top seven riders all lapped under the lap record and pole-man Stoner was almost 0.8seconds under it. Tyre performance was generally good all weekend, with riders favouring the harder option front slick for its extra braking stability and a mix of rear tyre choices in the race.
The International Automotive Technicians’ Network (iATN), has announced that it has recently surpassed three million records in its ‘Knowledge Base’, an online collection of automotive repair databases that contains technical information generated by iATN’s 72,000 active members in 154 countries. “The content in the Knowledge Base spans approximately 15 years and is based on the actual repair experiences and discussions of iATN members working on vehicles in the shop,” said Brent Black, iATN founder.
This year the China International Tire Expo – CITExpo for short – once again broke records. The show’s organiser states that the three-day exhibition was visited by more than 7,400 tyre experts. Last year Reliable International Exhibition Services registered the attendance of 6,320 visitors, which means that this year’s CITExpo, the eighth held, enjoyed 17 per cent visitor growth. This year’s numbers also well exceeded the show held in 2008 – before the global crisis – for which only 6,860 visitors made their way to the Shanghai Everbright Convention & Exhibition Center. At this year’s show, 60 per cent of visitors came from various regions throughout China, and the remaining 40 per cent from 92 countries around the world.
Over 65 years of development within the tyre maintenance industry has put Apaseal in a unique position to serve its customers. So say, company representatives who are aiming to demonstrate that they present the best one stop shop offer when they exhibit at October’s Brityrex in Manchester. In addition, Apaseal launched new workflow technology in May 2010 which, combined with a 20 per cent increase in engineers is intended to demonstrate the company’s “commitment to servicing…customers today and into the future.”
According to managing director, Martin Saint, “JobFlow PLUS enables us to efficiently manage our service work and remotely manage our mobile workforce; reducing costs, downtime and head office visits. We allocate jobs via TomTom WORK – which shows current vehicle location and efficiently navigates us to site.”
Whether your attitude towards caravans could best be described as “enthusiastic” or “Clarksonesque”, one potential problem for the holiday home on wheels has possibly escaped you: the degradation of its tyres during idle Winter months. With one of the brightest start to Summer since records began, UK safety organisation TyreSafe has taken the opportunity to address the problem, suggesting that caravan owners should pay particular attention to the condition of their tyres before heading off on holiday this year. Since caravans often stand unused for much of the off-season, there is a strong potential for tyre related problems to develop – such as cracking caused by the sun’s UV rays – making them unsafe or dangerous to use. To help owners identify such problems, TyreSafe, the UK’s leading tyre safety organisation, has launched a new section on its website at www.tyresafe.org dedicated to caravan tyre safety.
The board of Pirelli & C. has confirmed what the market has been predicting for some time – the company has “resolved upon a plan for separation of Pirelli Real Estate” from the rest of the tyre dominated business. According to the company, such a separation will occur through the assignment of nearly all Pirelli RE shares held by Pirelli & C. to ordinary and savings shareholders of Pirelli & C., and, therefore, via voluntary reduction of the corporate capital of Pirelli & C. for “an amount equal to the value of the Pirelli RE stake being assigned.” Now shareholders have to approve the transaction by July in order for the actual separation, planned for the end of 2010, to take place.
Pirelli & C. SpA confirmed yesterday (3 May 2010) that its board of directors is meeting today “to examine, among other things, the transaction for separation of Pirelli Real Estate from the Pirelli Group.” According to various sources, the timing of the meeting (a day before the company’s first quarter 2010 results presentation) suggests that the company is likely to announce a spin-off of the real estate business tomorrow 5 May. Deutsche Bank analysts estimate that the move is worth 0.04 euros a share or 8.5 per cent of market capitalisation.
MAM Software Ltd. has released Autocat+ v6.0, the latest version of its electronic all-makes parts catalogue, which introduces over 30 enhancements to improve lookup speed and accuracy. In this latest version, users can quickly and easily access previous searches to speed up repeat lookups. As well as remembering which product groups were searched for a given registration number, Autocat+ v6.0 also records the actual part numbers that were transferred to point-of-sale.
Nexen Tire has elected H.B. Lee as Nexen Tire vice chairman and CEO along with the appointment of Byung-Woo Lee as vice president sales division. Hyun-Bong Lee, the former CEO of Samsung Electronics, was elected as vice chairman and CEO in the meeting at the KOSPI 200 company’s recent annual shareholders meeting.
In spite of the economic downturn in 2009, last year Nexen Tire broke its all it records with sales of $760 million, 28 per cent up over 2008. According to the company, “this outstanding performance came from aggressive marketing strategy to US and European markets and uplifting brand power in Korean domestic markets.”
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