Gettin’ Schooled In Korea With Hankook

World of Wheels’ Craig Ritchie just returned from a visit to Hankook Tire’s state-of-the-art tire manufacturing and testing facilities in South Korea. His visit included a rare, behind-the-scenes tour of the company’s top secret G'trac proving grounds, where new tire designs are subjected to every imaginable torture on both dry and wet tracks. The trip marked the first time that automotive journalists have been allowed access to this high security facility.

  G'trac .... where very lucky people get paid to drive fun cars all day.

He also got a chance to take a ride with a professional driver on the company’s expansive drifting pad, pulling multiple 360s in a tricked-out Hyundai Genesis. “The drifting pad is a wild ride,” says Craig. “It’s kind of like pulling fishtails in a snowy parking lot, but magnified about 100 times over. Huge fun, and at the same time it lets the technicians learn a lot about how their tire designs handle all sorts of different kinds of stresses.”

How can you not love the smell of burning rubber?

Apart from the drifting pad, the G'trac facility includes two different test tracks. The wet track – the only one of its kind in Asia, and one of only a handful in the world – offers the chance to test tires on a wide range of surfaces that simulate wet pavement, snow, and even slick, rain-covered ice. The dry track is single-surface, but its tight turns and twisting pavement deliver a white-knuckle ride at even moderate speeds. Combined, they provide the perfect environments to evaluate the gripping abilities of different tread designs and tire materials in a controlled, real-world setting.

Your mission - keep the rubber on the road. Good luck.

"The most awesome part was being able to run laps in identical vehicles that were set up with different types of tires," says Craig. "I mean, it's one thing to read in the literature that tire X gives you six percent better traction than tire Y in tight cornering situations. But when you can actually get behind the wheel and feel the difference for yourself, it's absolutely day and night."

Hankook has more than 40 different vehicles in its G'trac tire testing fleet - from race cars to minivans to classic convertibles.

Look for Craig’s full report on Hankook's remarkable G'trac proving grounds soon in World of Wheels magazine.