Historic firsts

In 1903, few people drove cars in the United States. The automobile had been around for less than a decade and was seen as a gasoline-powered flash in the pan, to those who had seen one at all. Five years before Henry Ford introduced the Model T and made cars widely accessible to the general public, two men and a dog embarked on the first successful cross-country road trip, and inspired a nation to dream about the power of what a car could do.

As history would have it, the day the STS-1 Columbia Shuttle took off was the “dawn of a new era in space flight.” But before it was a new era, it was a test. A proving ground to show that the reusable, shuttle-based flight system could work. The mission was to launch, get to orbit, perform some tests, and then, just 54 hours later, come back in for a landing. 

A landing built on BFGoodrichⓇ Tires.

At first glance, Johnson Valley, California looks deceivingly empty. But there’s a lot of history tucked into that great, wide nothingness. Beneath the cracks in the dried earth lie the story of a vast, ancient lake. And within the humble cliff rocks — some of which date back billions of years — lies the birth story of the earth itself.

Although it’s only a few hundred miles south of Los Angeles, Baja California, Mexico might as well be another planet. Ruled solely by the elements, its 55,000 square miles of brutal, desolate landscape. A vast wilderness populated only by the occasional farm, beach resort, or the ruins of an old 18th-century Spanish mission.

At least, for most of the year.

Can a street-legal performance tire win against pure racing slicks? For a long time, the answer was no. Until 1970.