Too often, we’re consumed by the Ordinary. We get into our daily routines and never waver.
No matter how much you love what you do every day, it’s still refreshing to take a break once in a while from the Everyday.
To help you do that, we’ve tracked down some of the most unusual tire stories we could find. Some tales are from decades ago; some occurred just within the past few weeks.
Whether fascinating or downright silly, there’s something to be gained from these strange-but-true tire stories. Some may inspire a laugh. Others can provide interesting cocktail-party material.
Above all, though, we hope these stories provide you with a well deserved break from the Ordinary.
Big Impressions
In 1974, the graduating class of Lincoln-Sudbury High School in Massachusetts collected more than 200 old tires from area tire dealers and stacked them on the school flagpole. Senior boys took turns sitting on top of the pile.
In 1940, Goodyear blimps Reliance and Ranger conducted “blimpcasts” by projecting live greetings to the public using a record player, microphone and loudspeaker. And, the Goodyear blimp Defender was the first airship in the world to carry a lighted sign, according to Goodyear. Ten removable aluminum-framed panels – named the “Neon-O-Gram” – were attached to the side of the blimp. Each frame weighed 35 pounds and was six feet tall and four feet wide.
If you see Harvey Brodsky, managing director of the Tire Retread Information Bureau (TRIB), at a trucking show, he’ll likely introduce you to his traveling companion, Guido. Guido is a remnant of tire debris – some call him a “gator” – that Brodsky discovered on a Florida highway nearly 10 years ago. “He’s an ugly thing,” says Brodsky, “and he’s never been retreaded.” Brodsky displays Guido at trucking shows and uses him as a visual aid in his presentations. According to Brodsky, Guido has been very effective in proving that not all tire debris result from retreaded tires. “It’s a real show stopper,” he says. Brodsky recalls one time when Guido really threatened to stop the show. Brodsky had been invited to NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., to give a speech about retreading. Guards immediately surrounded him after the suitcase carrying Guido was put through the x-ray machine. Their fears were quickly put to rest, though, after one of the guards said, “That’s just too strange to be threatening.”
The 80-foot, 12-ton giant Uniroyal Tire towering over Detroit’s I-94 is the largest tire model ever built. Its ‘tread’ is half a foot deep! The monster tire originally served as a Ferris wheel in the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair. The wheel held 96 people and was powered by a 100-horsepower motor. In 1994, the Giant Tire was modernized with a new hubcap and neon lighting. Then, in 1998, a giant nail was placed in the tread as a way to promote the Uniroyal NailGard line. The Uniroyal brand name also appears on a 90-foot, 620-pound hot-air balloon shaped like a Tiger Paw tire. The floating tire’s ‘tread’ is 26 feet wide.
America’s longest-burning tire fire blazed for two and a half years – from August 1998 until December 2000 – and consumed some 7 million tires at a dump in Tracy, Calif. Eventually, Sukut Construction Inc. was brought in to help put out the fire, a process that took 15 days.
Weird Tire Science
Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird spy plane sports six BFGoodrich 32-ply tires, each filled with nitrogen at 415 psi, according to the March Field Air Museum at the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, Calif. The tires are impregnated with aluminum powder, cost more than $2,000 each and wear out after approximately 15 landings. Why the high-tech tires? Because the Blackbird, holder of the world speed record of 2,193 mph and the altitude record of 85,068 feet, heats up to temperatures of more than 1,000ºF during flight. ‘Normal’ tires would melt or explode. The plane gets so hot, in fact, that crew members have to wear pressure suits typically worn by astronauts, and more than 90% of the aircraft is constructed of titanium alloy and composites. In 1990, the Blackbird flew from Los Angeles to Washington in 64 minutes. That same year, the plane was retired due to high operating costs. The Blackbird resumed active service in the U.S. Air Force in 1995 but was retired again in 1997.
Australian scientists have produced a synthetic form of resilin, an elastic protein found in fleas, with the hopes that the protein can be used to create a new type of rubber with “near-perfect” durability and resilience. It’s the resilin in a flea’s tendons that gives it its remarkable jumping ability, according to the scientists. The material is also found in various flying insects.
Crime Scene Tires
Tires can help solve murders. How? By comparing tire impressions recovered from a crime scene to tires on a suspect’s vehicle. In fact, tire impressions can be as individual as fingerprints. Specific wear patterns as well as stones and other debris in the tread can distinguish one tire from another, even if they are the same brand, size and type.
Forensic tire sleuth Pete McDonald, former Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. tire design engineer, helps police all over the U.S. solve crimes by analyzing photographs of tire impressions. By analyzing the tread pattern, including pitch sequence and width, McDonald can determine the type, size and brand of the tire that made the impression, as well as the vehicle that was likely to be fitted with the tire.
McDonald recalls one case that strongly illustrates the potential for tires to be investigative tools. In Largo, Fla., tire tracks were found next to a prostitute who had been killed. Police sent photographs to McDonald, and he was able to determine the brand and size of the tire and the likely vehicle. Police then took that information to local tire dealerships and checked purchase records. They discovered that the woman who purchased the tire lived with a man who had recently served time in prison for violent crime. The tire impression led police right to the door of the murderer.
That’s not the end of the story. The police asked the tire dealer who sold the tire for help in gathering evidence, and together, they created a ruse. The dealer called the suspect and told him his tires had been recalled. The dealership promised four new tires in exchange for the old ones. The man rushed in to the tire shop and happily accepted his new set of tires. The old tires were sent to McDonald for further analysis. The tire impression, combined with other evidence, convinced a jury to convict the man and send him back to prison.
Rubber Tails and Conveyor Belts
In November 2004, Bridgestone Corp. constructed a rubber fin for a dolphin that had three-quarters of her tail amputated in 2002. The tiremaker used the same material it uses for its Formula One race tires to construct the fin, which cost about $95,000 to create. The dolphin, named Fuji, was able to jump and swim faster once she was fitted with her new rubber appendage.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. installed a 48-inch-wide, cushioned, steel-reinforced conveyor belt in a rhinoceros’ stall at a zoo in Buffalo, N.Y. The 4,700-pound rhino, named Henry, had been suffering from sore hooves and was due for surgery. The Flexsteel belt, originally designed for coal transport, helped to cushion the concrete surface of the stall and relieve some of Henry’s pain. Zoo veterinarians asked Goodyear to help Henry, whose hooves had developed scar tissue due to his weight.
Goodyear also designed a fabric-reinforced rubber flipper for a 350-pound sea turtle using a conveyor-belt rubber compound. And, recycled Goodyear conveyor belts are currently used to cushion floors in livestock stalls, according to the company.
Just Plain Wild
Plain-old tire hanging on a rope from a tree? No way. Tire swings will never be the same again. For only $100 to $250, you can buy a dog- or dragon-shaped tire swing. Also available: elephant, shark, reindeer (Christmas is coming!), horse and even T-Rex. These ferocious-yet-fun tire swings are made from recycled car and truck tires and “give the impression of being alive when sat on, due to the elasticity of the material,” according to Wildlife Creations, the manufacturer.
Deeply indented tread marks pattern the pretty face of then 2 1/2-year old Donna Casteel. In 1955, a parked car ran over her after its brakes slipped. Doctors found no injuries of any kind, except the tire pattern.
Artist and sculptor Sarah Perry is known for her work with “assemblage,” an art form that transforms junk and other discarded items into works of art. One of her most well known works is a realistic-looking, 700-pound gorilla made out of discarded truck tires. She fashioned the gorilla out of tire scraps found along Los Angeles highways.
Recycling Breakthroughs
A University of Massachusetts Amherst polymer researcher and professor conducted an experiment in which ground rubber was deposited into one of the four stomachs of a cow. The hope was that the bovine digestion process would break the sulfur bonds in vulcanized rubber, allowing for the clean disposal – and possible recycling of – modern-day natural and synthetic rubber. Over several weeks, the rubber, which was placed inside a teabag-like pouch inside the cow’s stomach, was examined. The professor found that the bacteria involved in the digestive process did indeed break the sulfur bonds. Could the same kind of bacteria be used to reduce vulcanized rubber to its original state and thus allow for reuse? That’s the hope, as the researcher and his associates work in the lab with test tubes containing sulfur-attacking bacteria and vulcanized rubber.
Scrap tires have found jobs as erosion-control dams, animal fences, road-construction barriers, bullet stops on rifle ranges, bridge supports, grain storage structures, livestock bedding and wave barriers. Goodyear participated in a project in Tucson, Ariz., in which 1,200 tires were baled and used to construct a 30-foot-long, six-foot high tire dam. A 25-foot tall dam in Arkansas made use of more than 50,000 tires. And, California used 860,000 tires to fill in a freeway embankment during construction.
In New Mexico, you can find homes called “earthships.” The walls of these eco-friendly structures are made of used tires recovered from landfills and filled with dirt. The inner surface of the tires, which forms the interior walls, is plastered with adobe or cement. Earthships use solar energy for heat, and the tires provide insulation. The concept was created by Michael Reynolds, author of several books on the topic and owner of construction planning company Earthship Biotecture, based in Taos, N.M.
