The Vehicle Dynamics Facility includes three courses: One for wet handling, one for dry handling and one for ride evaluation. These courses provide accurate tire ride and handling data. Several of the courses found within this facility can provide testing for various types of vehicle construction, durability and automotive component testing.

Wet Handling Pad

North America's largest at fifteen acres in size, the wet handling pad is an impressive 800 ft x 800 ft square asphalt pad which can be made wet over its entire surface to accommodate many test course configurations marked by traffic cones.

The pad appears level and flat, but has a slight one-percent grade over the 800 feet. This allows water from the perforated pipe at the top of the pad to flow in controllable amounts (from .05" to .11") over the surface.

Two plastic-lined earthen ponds, a one million-gallon clear pond and a two million-gallon storage and recovery pond, provide water for the wet handling pad.

Two asphalt approaches add to the flexibility of the testing available on this test pad, with the vehicle speeds dependent upon the course configuration.

Dry Handling Road Course

The dry road course portion is a 1.07 mi (1.72 km) asphalt course, featuring a 1,200 ft (366 m) long straightaway, curves, turns, and bends of various radii. Tires are tested for dry handling performance to evaluate varying designs and constructions. Vehicle construction and component evaluations are conducted on this course.

Ride Evaluation Course

This three-mile paved course is a multi-laned track with three- and four-lane straightaways and two-lane curves. Various surfaces and impacts are incorporated to evaluate ride comfort, impact dampening, transmission, and tire noise as well as vehicle construction, durability and automotive component testing. Additionally, objective pass-by noise is measured on the new ISO 10844 noise course. Nearly level, this three-mile oval track has 1,432 ft (436 m) radius curves and 3,420 ft (1042 m) straightaways.