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EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE - Where do you go to test snow tires in October? Florida, of course.
About 50 Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. retailers got a chance Friday to try out the company's high-end TripleTred all-weather tire on a layer of snow up to 10 inches deep inside the Air Force's McKinley Climatic Laboratory at the Panhandle base.
The temperature is 10 degrees in the cavernous laboratory, an insulated hangar big enough to test the Air Force's largest planes under conditions ranging from winter snow and frost to tropical rains to desert sandstorms.
"We came here, obviously, because the (weather) is so controllable," Goodyear test driver Rick Neale said.
Tire sellers drove sport sedans equipped with the new tire on crunchy snow before heading outside to give it a go on a makeshift wet-dry course.
Company officials hope that once retailers have experienced the tire on Eglin's snow, they'll go home and offer the all-weather radial as an alternative to conventional snow tires.
It costs between $15,000 and $30,000 daily to lease the climatic laboratory, so Goodyear also is testing some super-secret products under development.
Goodyear spokesman Ed Marky said it's tough to find natural snow this time of year unless you're willing to travel far and wide and at great expense. "We want to demonstrate the tire in the snow before the winter tire-buying season," he said.