When General Tire approached Greg Biffle about joining Team GT in 2018 to test General’s “Anywhere Is Possible” theme, he was pretty quick to answer.
“I work for tires,” said Biffle. “I’ve got a lot of cars and trucks, so I was all in.”
Biffle's first role as a member of Team GT took place in New Orleans, La., where he participated in the launch of the latest additions to the General Tire line, the G-MAX RS and the GRABBER A/TX. Biffle participated alongside media members covering the event, testing the new product line on a variety of vehicles while providing behind-the-scenes access to General Tire’s social media channels.
“If you would have been at NOLA Motorsports Park when we were down there testing the new G-MAX RS and GRABBER A/TX tires, you clearly would have seen that I’m hanging out a bit, let’s just put it that way,” Biffle said after the event.
Click to watch the video for Biffle’s recap of the event
“We were shooting some video, they wanted to capture the car drifting. They were filming that out of a minivan only about six or eight feet away from me at 50 to 60 mph. It was difficult to get the car to slide, to get the tire spin that I was looking for to get the car sideways and get what I was trying to get out of it because the G-MAX RS have so much grip, you know? It’s a good and a bad thing. For trying to get what they were trying to film, I had my work cut out for me.”
General Tire had a variety of vehicles at the two-day event, identically prepared with tires being the lone exception. Competitor brands were represented to give a true test of the two new tires stacked up against the closest comparisons available.
“You can tell instantly,” said Biffle. “You would have a hard time picking the brand of tire, but you can certainly tell the quality of the tire you’re on from the grip level and all of that. We actually did that with a BMW and some of the other cars, we got to experience the G-MAX RS tire against some of the competitor brand tires. We’d get in the same car with the only difference being the tires it was on and you were able to tell instantly.
“I’m going to tell you, we drove Mini Coopers on the small track and the wet traction difference between the three different tires we drove on was just incredible. I never felt that the traction could be that good in the wet. I don’t know what they did with this tire, but it has a tremendous amount more of grip in the wet. On the dry, you’re talking percentages of difference. They were closer. But in the wet it was extremely different. The thing I like about that is the most dangerous driving is in the wet. People just don’t slow down on wet roads. They underestimate the stopping distance or the cornering ability. The new G-MAX RS is going to increase that margin for novice drivers we’ll say, or idiot drivers if you prefer, out on wet roads.”
All-in-all, it was a little bit of work and a lot of play for Biffle, who was joined by Billy Johnson, driver of the No. 66 Ford GT for Chip Ganassi Racing in the World Endurance Championship. The two quickly turned the event into a competition on both the off-road portion of the test and the track day. While the pair kept things (relatively) clean on the track, things did get a little dirty off road.
“I’m telling you what, we had a lot of fun,” Biffle said as he stood in front of a mud-covered Jeep. “You can tell that Billy Johnson was in front of me for a little bit, but don’t worry. I got him back.”
What’s next on Biffle’s #AnywhereIsPossible trip? You’ll just have to wait and see. Be sure to follow General Tire’s social channels and follow #Biffle on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
