Rubberneckin'

Testing tyres at a TSD rally.

What do you do when you launch a new car tyre? Press conference? Sumptuous lunch?

Well those are fine, but what we would really want is for them to slap a few sets on to some of the finest cars available in the country and invite people to drive them. And Apollo did just that with the launch of the Acelere Sportz.

Apollo roped in the guys from Northern Motorsports and organised a TSD format rally that started in Mumbai and ended in Daman, on the border of Gujarat.

Yes, even I know that the two places are connected by the arrow-straight NH8, but these guys had a cleverly planned route that snaked through the state highways through Manor, Dahanu, Bordi and finally into Daman.

Co-drivers were allotted and cars picked out of a hat. My co-driver managed to pick a Mercedes-Benz E280 from amongst the Ford Fiestas, Chevy Aveos, Honda Accords and Citys.

The Acelere Sports on the E280 are India's first asymmetrical treaded tyres. Okay, let me explain. Asymmetrical treads are tyres which have different patterns on the inner and outer sides of the tyres.

The outer sides are usually a stiffer block pattern, which help with cornering. The inner side is usually softer and suited to offer maximum grip in wet conditions.

With that out of the way, let's get back to the TSD part of the event. It was actually my first TSD event, and the first time my navigator discovered that he could calculate distance as a product of speed and time. So off we were, with him furiously working the calculator and me trying to work our way through the traffic on our way out of the city.

We reached the first time check a couple of minutes late and were quite pleased with ourselves. On the third leg of the event, a not so slight miscommunication had me averaging 72 kph through a couple of 38 kph ghat sections. But I'm not really complaining "" who would, actually?

Besides, my excuse was that I was putting the tyres through some serious testing. The Acelere Sports were put through more than what I had managed at ATP, which is Daimler Chrysler's extensive testing facility in Papenburg, Germany, and the tyre did score ahead of the benchmark in six of eleven evaluated parameters.

You're wondering if I was any good at this TSD rally thing, right? Well, I'm not sure myself, because at the end of it they didn't announce the results.

As for the tyres, they're definitely worth a look. Better grip levels, ride quality and low reduced rolling resistance and sound levels are what they have to offer.

The Acelere Sportz will be available in 20 cities across the country in six different sizes for your C and D segment cars. As for me, I'm going to try and perfect the art of driving in a TSD event.