May 10-13, 2002

Goodyear Tire Photo Shoot

Goodyear Tire Company held a video and photo shoot in the beautiful area of Monterey to showcase their new performance tire the Goodyear Eagle F1-GSD3. I was very fortunate to be able to participate with Nomura Tuning & Design and Goodyear Tires in a video shoot for their upcoming "Tuner tire" release. The new Eagle F1-GSD3 was already available in Europe and, at the time, was not D.O.T. approved for the United States. They wanted to feature some "Tuner" cars, as they will be including this group in their target market. They chose Nomura Tuning and Design to provide cars based upon his excellent reputation and exceptional workmanship. The video was shot in various locations in and around Monterey CA. They carefully mounted and balanced the tires with a new Hunter mounting machine & balancer that was brought in specifically for us at a Goodyear tire store in Pacific Grove, near Pebble Beach. They even had a tire specialist from their Ohio Headquarters to do all the mounting and balancing. They videotaped us driving on Oceanview Dr. in groups and solo using radios to coordinate the effort. Everywhere we stopped we attracted quite a bit of attention; it was very fun! We also did some shots from the back of a van so they could tape us going down the street and down the freeway. The whole crew then headed over to Roy's drive-in on Main Street in Salinas. They parked a silver Audi TT with two female models in it and a black Porsche Boxter side-by-side with two male models. After some close ups they set up the cameras so you see the girls and guys chatting while three Nomura Supras and one Nomura NSX drives up in the background (quickly) as they come to park at the drive-in. I understand Roy's drive-in is a well-known place that has been there for 30 years. We caused quite a commotion at the drive-in too. The guys from Goodyear were impressed with all of the interest the tuner cars generated. After we finished up at Roy's we stayed overnight in Carmel. On Saturday we headed back to Oceanview Drive for more shooting and finished off the day having lunch with the Corporate guys from Goodyear.

Continued Success,

Jeff Lee