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There is a tire company that has been quietly building top-tier tires and making data-based technology a priority. Kumho Tires, makes no excuses and fixes its target on creating only the best tires.
The pursuit of “The Best” is all well and good, but proof, as they say, is in the puddin’, and Kumho Tires decided to put their tires to the test in a spectacular fashion. Gathering a large group of people together at Atlanta Motorsports Park outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Kumho installed their tires on a fleet of test cars and confidently invited everyone to give them hell… Well, those weren’t their words, and I might have been reading between the lines, but give them hell we did.
An important presentation and dinner the evening before the track day gave all of us attendees a chance to get up close and personal with the featured tires from Kumho. These models were the Ecsta Sport, Ecsta Sport S, and the Ecsta Sport A/S all-season. While it might seem odd to the Torqued Magazine readership, the average person doesn’t know or usually care what a brand new tire smells or feels like underhand. As a gearhead, like so many of you, I appreciate both of those things in a way only we can.
During the presentation portion of the night, there was so much technology covered that my simple knuckle dragger brain couldn’t possibly catalog it all. But the things that stood out to me were also very evident on the tire, like the unique tire tread pattern, the special EV designation emblem on the side wall, the unique contact surface shape, and the K-Silent technology on the inside of the tire. Something else I noticed was the feel of the tire in my hands, the classic rubber feel was absent, which I learned was due to the so-called Max Grip Resin. All of these elements made me feel instant confidence in the tire and an increased excitement for the driving portion the next day.
The Kumho Tires Ride & Drive 2025 could have been engineered to give those of us visiting a taste of the Kumho products in a way that provided a predictable publicity outcome. The pair of drift cars, pair of Porsche GT4 factory racecars, and the half-dozen other race-ready Porsches and Ford Mustangs proved that Kumho wasn’t interested in the curated driving experience and was willing to let it all hang out.
The driving events for the day were divided into four sessions to feature specific features of or sides of the tires. To my great surprise and extreme delight, my first session was the drift station. A Cadillac CTS-V and a Chevrolet Corvette sat parked next to several sets of already burnt-out Ecsta Sport S tires and several more already mounted on wheels, ready to be chewed on. Helmet in place I took a spin in both cars with two very skilled drivers. I admit that the trouble with this station was that… well, we were just burning up tires and I find it impossible to know if one tire burns up any differently than any other. However, I had an absolute blast during this session. Verdict: Kumho Ecsta Sport tires burn up on drift passes really well. Five stars. Would recommend.
Moving down to the next station, I found myself in the driver’s seat of a black race-prepped Porsche 911 behind a white version of the same car. Following a pace car out, both Porsches had the chance to make several hot laps around the track. The Kumho Ecsta Sport tires performed shockingly well. The Atlanta Motorsports Park track has some hard hairpin turns and these tires provided a wild amount of confidence during hard braking and an absurd amount of traction during the hard acceleration on the exit. After my hot laps in the 911 were over, I was immediately stuffed into a beautiful blue Porsche GT4 RS. Being ‘stuffed’ into the car is the nicest way for me to put it because at 6’4” and nearly 300lbs I’m not a small guy. Fortunately, the Ecsta Sport S tires on this amazing machine didn’t care about any of that for all my hot laps. The Ecsta Sport tires on the 911 were outstanding but I was surprised to find out that there was more! Combined with the German engineering of the Porsche these tires felt completely at home on the track and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to even the most aggressively driven street car, knowing full well that these Kumho tires would absolutely deliver in the “seat of the pants dyno” of light-to-light driving. Verdict: Since no one I know would be driving a Porsche GT4 RS on the street and knowing how confidently these tires handle that car on the track I would, without hesitation, recommend them to even my most discerning of gearhead friends and family.
After falling sideways out of the GT4 RS and picking myself up off the asphalt, I moved to the next station, the wet skid pad. I’m from Idaho, you learn to drive in the snow early so I’m perfectly comfortable sliding sideways on wet or snow-covered asphalt… usually in parking lot… and maybe in a white suburban… and maybe with four or five friends in the back, don’t tell my mom. Approaching the skid pad, I was more curious than afraid of the sprinklers generously hosing down the decline that ends in a donut-shaped skid pad. My curiosity was born from the information shared the evening before, when, during the presentation, the wet driving stats for the Ecsta Sport A/T were shared. The highly detailed stats, which, like other numbers in my life, escape me at the time of this writing, would probably be helpful to people who like spreadsheets, but it was the bold claim that was made about the tire’s ability to recover from a slide in wet conditions that made me curious. In the hypothetical situation involving a Chevy Suburban described above, a driver might find that the only way to regain good traction after a slide like that is when the slide finally ends and the vehicle has come to a complete stop.
On my very first pass on the wet skid pad, in the driver’s seat of a rather nice-looking but mid-level Mustang 5.0, I was surprised to find out exactly what they were talking about. The course was designed for the driver to blast off the starting line down the hill, get up to whatever speed you could in a short distance, and then slam on the brakes when you arrive at a set of orange cones. Next, the driver is supposed to punch the go-pedal and make several passes around the donut-shaped area at the bottom, testing the slide characteristics and recovery rate more fully. Then, before exiting the donut and heading back to the top, the driver stops at the bottom before blasting up the hill and through a short but dramatic S curve. At every obstacle, the Ecsta Sport A/T tires performed beautifully and recovered from the slides so quickly that my inner redneck was disappointed that I couldn’t get the rear wheel drive car to slide for longer and have more fun! Even after switching from the Mustang to a Porsche, with all the rear-engine weight, I found my fun getting shut down even when I managed to force a slide. The climb up the hill with these tires, no matter how hard I pushed the throttle pedal, was uneventful because the resin-enhanced tire compound bit into the asphalt like a rabid Wolverine. Verdict: I think I’d like to put these on my wife’s car just for the peace of mind!
The final session for the day was a short and twist-filled road course. Three cars were available to choose from, a beautiful top-tier Mustang 5.0 with “Snow Performance” Methanol Injection and one of the best-sounding Mustang exhaust systems I’ve heard yet. As well, a Porsche Cayman, and “John Cooper Works” Mini Cooper. Now, I’m going to be honest here, and it might seem hard to believe but… I simply couldn’t fit into one of these cars. The surprising part for you will be to find out that the car that I couldn’t fit in was the Porsche and NOT the Mini. So I spent the last session of the day switching between the beast of a RWD Mustang and the mousey FWD Mini Cooper. Once again the redneck in me was calling out to abandon the Mini. And spend all my time strapped in the seat of the throaty exhaust equipped American Freedom Machine and to ditch the puny Mini. Much like on the Wet Skid Pad, though short of ripping on the e-brake handle, the Kumho Tires Ecsta Sport tires were not super interested in letting me slide through any of the corners and instead vehemently insisted on keeping me completely loaded up with traction and earning faster and faster lap times. About a year ago I went down to the BMW Driving School in Thermal, California and did the Mini Stunt Driving School. So after flogging on a Mini for that extremely hot day in the California Dessert I was well aware of the surprising fun and space that the Mini offered. I was definitely happy to exit the pony car and go for a few passes in the small European vehicle. The Kumho brand tires did just as well on the Mini as everything else I’d driven that day… Even when the inside rear wheel came off the ground in the hard corners of the road course… don’t tell my wife.
Verdict: Without the enhancements that the drift cars had to break the tires free of the friction between rubber and asphalt, these tires proved to be excellent at keeping traction across both wet and dry asphalt… whether you want them to or not! Again, five stars, would recommend.
And so ended the track day of the 2025 Kumho Tires Ride & Drive event. Kumho Tires knows how to put their money where their mouth is. The confidence the company has in these tires is well placed and was proven over and over to me from one session to the next. Stepping briefly back to the dinner from the night before, we had the opportunity to hear from the Global CEO of Kumho Tires, Jung Il-Taik. What was cool about hearing from Jung, was not necessarily any specific thing he said about the tires, but it was about his unwavering commitment to making the best tires. Not the best “THEY” could make, but the best tire period. Having a CEO with this level of commitment to being the best is great, but unless this commitment is found elsewhere in the company, it is just one voice in the forest. Before becoming CEO Jung was the CTO for Kumho Tires. This means that the people on the board for this company are likewise committed to making the best tires because they promoted the Chief Technology Office to the CEO position. In my experience and observation of business in general, companies don’t usually promote like this because they are looking at budgets, spreadsheets, profit margins, and shareholder value. Promoting like this takes a group of very forward-thinking and goal-oriented people. My hat is off to Kumho Tires for putting on one helluva great event and producing such great tires.
At the beginning, I said that Kumho Tires was quietly building top-tier tires, but in reality, their confidence in their tires speaks louder than the loudest of marketing campaigns.
Words by Jacob Heaton
Huge Thank you to Kumho Tires for inviting us to this special event. It was everything a Car nut would crave and more.
