Week in and week out, BFGoodrich® Tires Special Event displays travel throughout the U.S. and Mexico to major on- and off-road races, car shows, and major car club gatherings like NHRA, NOPI and the Woodward Dream Cruise. More than 100 events each year. This is the story of the guys that work on those trucks, and the extraordinary lengths they go to make sure those events come off without a hitch - for everyone.

Even when everything goes exactly as planned, the Special Events team has a massive job on its hands. Tim Walker, a BFGoodrich Tires Event Manager on the auto show circuit, describes the routine on arrival at the NOPI Nationals.

"We arrive the day before," Walker says. "For a Saturday event, we pull in at 8 or 9 AM Friday morning. We put up our awnings and BFGoodrich banners and buff everything so it shines. Then, Friday afternoon, when another transporter brings in our display cars, we shine them and get them ready."

At the 2004 NOPI Nationals and other sport compact events, the BFGoodrich Special Events team ran an autocross course on a parking lot to allow enthusiasts to do comparison drives on different sets of tires around a timed course.

"The NOPI Nationals are huge," says Dan Newsome, former event manager for BFGoodrich Brand. "It easily draws over 100,000 auto enthusiasts for a weekend. We provide from six to eight cars -- from a VW to a 350Z to a WRX -- for comparison driving on an autocross course, with different sets of tires available (both BFGoodrich and competitive brands). It's so popular people will wait two or three hours in the blazing sun for their turn on the course."

Newsome and Walker say the event and others like it helped show young sport compact fans the difference between BFGoodrich® tires and other brands.

"You'd see them walking away after their second drive, looking at their time slips," Walker says, "and hear them say, 'There really is a difference.' They tell us, 'I never knew your tires were that good.'"

One of the things that serves both enthusiasts and the Special Events crew is the opportunity for dialogue that each event provides.

"We have friendships with enthusiasts who come to shows every year," Walker says. "They have questions they can ask our tire performance specialists, and get expert answers and advice they can't get anywhere else."

Walker notes that both sport compact and hot rod enthusiasts tend to do their own research about tires, suspension modifications, and often shop on-line. So their interaction with the BFGoodrich special events team members is important.

"Also," Walker says, "we learn important stuff at the shows. The sport compact guys will tell us about our products: 'This is cool, that's not cool. You should be making this.' It's really helpful information for us."

The role of the BFGoodrich support vehicles at major racing events is a different world entirely. In off-road racing, the BFGoodrich support vehicles form the race pits that serve as the life support system for racers competing on some of the most desolate and difficult terrain on earth. The transporters have been a constant presence at major off-road events for close to 30 years.

In the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, over a hundred racers depend on the presence of the BFGoodrich pit stops staggered across the rugged, mostly uninhabited peninsula. All day long, during the race, the pit crew members service the racers coming in for fuel, tires, and repairs - almost anything.

What the racers who rely on the sight of the BFGoodrich banner on the support tractor trailer don't realize is what the crews often go through to get there on time. Jeff Cummings, a longtime member of the BFGoodrich off-road competition support team, has enough mishap and near-disaster stories to fill a book.

Here's one : On a Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 "long course," that extended the length of the peninsula from Ensenada to La Paz, Cummings was part of the sweep team carrying up the rear of the long procession of BFGoodrich tractor-trailer rigs headed for the 13 pit stop locations en route to La Paz. The trouble occurred in downtown Ensenada during rush hour, when the driveshaft of the tractor-trailer snapped on a turn, blocking all traffic.

Big Problem: the truck was scheduled to be 900 miles south within less than 36 hours. It had no driveshaft, and Ensenada had no source of driveshafts for a tractor-trailer.

Solution: The support team members fabricated a new driveshaft from remnants of the broken one. By the time it was installed, the support truck was 12 hours behind schedule.

"We drove all night and by dawn we had caught up with the rest of the trucks where they had stopped for the night. When the first race vehicles came into the pit area at Santa Rita, they found our pit set up and ready to go. Just as if nothing had gone wrong at all."

On another Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, a tractor-trailer en route to its pit location flipped on the dry lake bed - 40 miles from its destination. The trailer was filled with everything - tires, tools, parts, fuel -- needed for the pit service for the entire race. Solution? "With about ten hours before the first race vehicles were due," Cummings says, "the crew used pickup trucks to transport the entire contents of the trailer to the pit location 40 miles away where they set up a tent city."

When the first racers came in for fuel and tires, they saw a complete pit set-up - minus the trailer that is usually the anchor of the site. But the pit was up and working, with all supplies present.

The stories happen at every race. But, Cummings says, in 25 years of BFGoodrich support of Baja racing, "every pit at every location on the course has been up and functioning, on schedule.

"And the amazing part of it," says Cummings, "is that most of the BFGoodrich pit support crew guys are volunteers."

Walker also acknowledges that the life of Special Events team members is demanding. "Some rig drivers are away from their families for weeks or months at a time." But he sees a payoff:

"We're the actual face behind the brand. We're the people they can meet and ask questions, and learn what they need to know.

"It makes us feel that we're making a difference."