A wet and gray Michigan morning gave way to a sunshine-filled afternoon at the Michigan International Speedway (MIS) in mid-October as the Ingham County Sherriff’s Department used the day to train new officers on the intricacies of high pursuit driving.

Deputies tested vehicle dynamics by putting several of the department’s Chevrolet Impala police cruisers through an intense variety of demanding situations. Meanwhile, Affinia product managers and R&D engineers seized the opportunity to personally test the latest line of Raybestos® brand D3EA PPSV Police Friction by driving the cruisers around the track.

“The opportunity for the Raybestos® product managers and R&D engineers to drive identical vehicles equipped with different pad compounds and rotors back-to-back provides critical feedback,” says Charles Darsey, test manager at Affinia’s Research and Development Center in Lexington, Ky. “We use that data to continually provide the absolute best law enforcement brake components available.”

For more than a decade, every police cruiser pulling out of Master Mechanic Stephen DeKett’s garage at the Ingham County Sherriff’s Department has been equipped with Raybestos® brand Police Friction. And every year, despite deteriorating highway conditions and increased demands on emergency vehicles, DeKett has never wavered on what friction to install on his fleet.

“It gets bitter cold here in the wintertime and the quality of our roads is absolutely horrendous. Still, we never notice any reduction in braking ability,” says DeKett. “Working with the folks at Raybestos® has been a terrific opportunity to provide our officers with superior product. It gives (the officers) a good feeling when they get in their car and they know they’re equipped with a product that will be there all day.”

This was the 14th year Affinia sent a team of product engineers to Ingham County to witness training and record data. Over the years, the countless man hours invested into enhancing the Raybestos® Police Friction has produced an always-evolving line of police and emergency vehicle friction unmatched in its field. In 2009, the Raybestos® brand Police-specific friction system will include rotors, hi-temperature calipers and D3EA PPSV certified pursuit-rated brake pads.

D3EA PPSV (Police and Public Service Vehicle) Certification uses independently administered, state-of-the-art dual-end brake dynamometer testing conducted at Greening Testing Laboratories, Inc. (GTL) in Detroit. As stated in Greening’s D3EA PPSV Test Guidelines, “PPSV certification captures the critical system level performance characteristics of police and other emergency service vehicles and has established performance requirements that may surpass those imposed by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM’s).”          

For more information, visit www.raybestos.com or www.affiniagroup.com.