A Centerpiece for a Jeep Jamboree Dinner

I was fiddling with it the entire meal. When our waiter asked why, replied I was waiting to see what went into the slots.

He looked at me a little sideways, but said nothing.

Then peppers showed up, and then a flower… Then during dessert, a company spokesman said it’d taken them forever to make… wait.

Me – Thought it was just a blobby centrepiece, why go to such trouble…

Him – Flip it, Keri.

Face went :O

It’s the iconic Jeep grille.

Aside – points for working cars into a BloggingAboutFood.com post. Happens so rarely it’s the smallest blog tag – Eat a Car

 

 

I Texted while Driving

State Farm hosted a distracted-driving event – get behind the wheel of an Acura ILX and go around an autocross track while they bark instructions at you from a radio. I was alarmingly good at it.

Jokes aside, distracted driving is the new drinking & driving – don’t do it, me first.

It’s not the manual dexterity that makes distracted driving dangerous, it’s the required mind shift.

Read it online at Autonet.

Favourite line:

A car moving at 60 km/h will travel 16 meters – or 5 car lengths – in one second. Can you read a text in one second? No chance. 

***

About the Acura ILX – here

Back to ‘Keri on Driving’ – Index

 

 

In Utah with Jeep and going Offline

Hi hi from Utah. It’s really red here, and looks like a cartoon.

Right now I’m in a remote ranch, then tomorrow I’m off on an extreme off-roading adventure where the sky will fill the windshield and wheels can slip and slide. I’m 1/4 Canadian journalists here, lucky eh. Tomorrow night we sleep in a cave?!

I forgot to pack a purse, so at dinner I used that envelope as one.

See? Cartoon.

The bad part is apparently cell signals have a tough time fighting through this landscape, as in, there isn’t one. Can’t phone, can’t text, WiFi is weak, my phone turned into a black box.

And it’s going to get worse on the trials tomorrow, and no chance while camping tomorrow night…

So that’s why I’ll be unreachable until Friday night.

Wish me luck! TTYS

 

 

Testing BFGoodrich’s g-Force COMP-2 A/S Tires

BFGoodrich invited me to Mosport racetrack to test their all-new tire, the g-Force COMP-2 A/S.

But while listening to the morning’s press presentation my breath sucked in, “oh no, A/S stands for All-Season, how did I miss that?”

Okay I know exactly how – when reading the invite email, “Keri, we’d like to invite you to the track…” my eyes glazed over everything after “track”.

But this was a problem, because how can I endorse an All-Season tire when I’ve been putting them down for years, both here and at the paper?

Then the spokesman said 2 things that won me over:

1 – they said an All-Season tire really means 3 seasons, “it’s not a snow tire.” Agreed 100%
2 – before sending me out, they gave instructions on how to cheat a tire test

In the hundreds of press events I’ve attended it’s rare to hear such honesty. Day is off to a good start.

Test #1 – Braking

Floor it to 70 km/h, then stand on the brakes and measure which tire brought me to a stop in the shortest distance.

Super fun to do, super erratic results that tell me nothing. It’s not the tire’s performance, it’s because the driver (me) braked all over the place, so can’t rely on results when the tester was so inconsistent.

Test #2 – Wet Autocross

Toss 3 identical Audi A4s around a wet autocross course while riding on the 3 competitors – Continental, General and BFGoodrich.

Continental – didn’t hold the corners as well as BFGoodrich
General – the most fun because they slid all over the place; this is not a compliment
BFGoodrich – grippiest, and I executed my smoothest lap on these. Winner

Test #3 – Dry Autocross

Floored 2015 Ford Mustangs around a dry autocross course. Same set up as Test #2 – identical cars, around the same track, riding on 3 different brands.

And guys my skills are improving, I’m getting smoother!

Watch:

General – sliding around again but less funny than the wet track, these grip poorly
Continental – better than the Generals, but…
BFGoodrich – I was able to get back on the throttle the quickest with these because the grip was already there. Winner 

So BFGoodrich’s g-Force COMP-2 A/S won. And their price point is right in line with their competitors.

They come with a 70,000 km warranty, are on-sale now in 32 different sizes, then 52 sizes by Q1 of 2016.

I’ll leave you with the same thing I always tell you…

Don’t cheap out on the ONLY part
of your car that touches the road!