[Spridgets] Tire Rack.com needs a Spridget to measure/trial-fittires on

[David Lieb]

>>> I've bought quite a few new tires from them, in the past 18 months (for 
>>> my Golf, wife's Passat, my 356 & Midget) and, except for the frustration 
>>> I previously described, it's been all good.  Usually, I look them up on 
>>> the Tire Rack website and have my buddy order them, through his
business.  That way, he gets a modest commission, and my cost is about
the same.  This time, however, I placed the order because I knew he'd be
swamped with winding down Pittsburgh Vintage GP (he's the chairman &
race director).
My conversation with TireRack.com's customer relations guy was very
satisfactory, and they will continue to get most of my tire business (at
least until my oldest son takes over running an NTB store closer to me
;)
____________________________________________________

My issues have nothing to do with the way they sell tires. I have used their 
website and will continue to do some research on there. I think they do a 
fine job and all that. I am not suggesting that anyone should take their 
business elsewhere.

I am an autocross coordinator with the Windy City Miata Club. For the last 
several years we have had a weekend event on the test track of Tire Rack in 
South Bend, IN. One of our former members lives in the area and designs and 
sets up the track. Tire Rack has a representative who is supposed to be 
there both days to unlock the track, make a safety spech at the drivers 
meeting, etc. At the event we had two years ago, the guy never showed up on 
Saturday at all. He showed up on Sunday about 10am smelling strongly of 
beer. There were several guys from the Polish Auto Klub running with us and 
he thought that one of them was some dude that Tire Rack had banned from the 
facility (mind you, he based this on seeing a Subaru factory paintjob from 
100' away or so). So he walks across a hot track with a car coming at him to 
yell at the guy. Turns out he couldn't prove that it was the banned guy 
anyway (mighta bin, but not my problem; he was behaving itself and TR does 
not give us a list of banned people or anything). Our lead coordinator gave 
him grief for walking across a hot track in front of a car at speed and he 
got mad and decided to throw some of our guys out to show that he was the 
one in charge. He decided that the easy target was the two guys with MGs (my 
Midget and Barney's MGA), so he sat and stared at the bottom of the cars 
until he saw a drop of oil come off and threw us out because "we were 
leaking oil on the track". I don't particularly care for that action from a 
drunk. Tire Rack took the attitude that no one else wanted the job of 
hand-holding for the car clubs that use the test track on the weekends, so 
they were just going to ignore the fact that their company was being 
represented by a guy who reeked of beer on Sunday morning and ignored basic 
safety rules. I consider the situation to be an accident waiting to happen 
and I want nothing more to do with them.
David Lieb