BFGoodrich’s New g-Force Phenom T/A Tire Set to Become Enthusiasts’ Friend Just Like the Comp 2s It Replaces

Trust can manifest itself in many forms when it comes to tires like the new BFGoodrich g-Force Phenom T/A line. It’s developed over time, through generations of rolling stock that people grow familiar with. It’s forged on racetracks when you’re barreling into a corner at the limits of adhesion with roaring chaos all around you. And it's earned when you spend your precious cash on a replacement set of tires that do what they say they’re going to do—and do it at an attainable price.

BFGoodrich’s 150-plus-year-long and storied history as an American tire brand predates the car and is littered with numerous firsts, so there’s plenty of trust there. But in recent decades it has staked its reputation as a tiremaker aimed at and for enthusiasts, with off-road performance tires like the new All-Terrain T/A K03, which we recently went to Alaska to test, lauded as world-beating.

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While not as well known as the Baja-legendary All-Terrain T/A line, we’ve been reporting on BFG’s g-Force tires for the better part of 20 years as rubber that track rats, weekend autocrossers, and low-profile stance dancers have all come to use in its various configurations. We had a chance to sample BFG’s ultra-high-performance summer-rated g-Force PhenomT/A as part of a two-day immersion into the world of the Skip Barber Racing School, a program that helps drivers build trust in themselves and their abilities on circuits like California’s Sonoma Raceway.

How BFG Puts More G-Force in Its New Phenom

During a session filled with the usual marketing messages, target demographics (famed tuning culture photographer Larry Chen did some shoots promoting the tire), and charts detailing how well the g-Force Phenom performs and is priced, we asked what the one thing was that the Phenom truly excels at above all else. The response? Wet performance.

It makes sense. When you’re choosing a UHP summer tire, the last thing you want whether you’re driving along in a rainstorm or ripping around a wet track is to have your sports car hydroplane off into a ditch—or worse. One of the g-Force Phenom’s defining grip-maximizing features is its two-zone design with an internal wet zone designed to improve water evacuation and a dry zone from roughly the middle out to maximize contact with the tarmac. As a result, BFG says it helps cars brake better in the wet than the competition, including one of its main bogeys, the Yokohama ADVAN Apex V601, and the g-Force Sport Comp 2 it effectively replaces.

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Yes, the g-Force Phenom can get after it on a track, which we found out. But the BFG crew on hand was also quick to point out that while, yes, it has the stiff sidewalls, large shoulder blocks, and the like to give it chops to chop it up on a corner-heavy circuit like Sonoma, this is not a straight-up track tire like its Rival S and coming Rival + lines, so maximizing wear was also a huge consideration. It was eye-opening to understand how much mixing and molding and “batter spreading” goes into a tire like the g-Force Phenom, with some 200 rubber compounds and heaping helpings of silica mixed and distributed to keep wear even and progressive.

Skipping Around Sonoma With Skip Barber and the g-Force Phenom

Another trusted relationship has been the many tie-ups between BFGoodrich and various Skip Barber motorsports incarnations for more than two decades, with the Skip Barber Racing School and BFG forming another partnership last year. It offered a hugely beneficial opportunity to both get some valuable instruction over two days with Skip Barber instructors at Sonoma (it’s a program we’d highly recommend if you want to be a better high-performance driver), all while helping us learn about how the g-Force Phenom performed under pressure.

It was rainy at Sonoma during the two days we were there, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing given the g-Force Phenom’s stated wet traction capabilities. A wet skidpad exercise got even wetter and let us get a feel for how the Phenom handled its limits of adhesion compared to a brand X tire, with the BFG rubber holding on slightly longer and feeling easier to control when the rear tires of the Ford Mustang four-banger we were sampling broke loose.

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Besides the BFG tire evaluation time, the Skip Barber team helped us improve our car control with a series of exercises designed at getting better at reeling in a car when it starts sliding, thanks in part to what’s known as a Drift Ring (you want to drift a Nissan Altima, this will do it) fitted to the right rear tire.

The main event, however, was hot laps in Skip Barber’s race-prepped Mustang GTs of 2005–’10 vintage, equipped with 325-hp, 350-lb-ft V-8s paired with Tremec six-speed manuals, stripped interiors with roll cages and race seats, upgraded brakes, and of course g-Force Phenoms all around.

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Sonoma is a world-class track with huge, imposing uphill turns, a long and challenging carousel corner, high-speed esses, and a low-speed chicane. In other words, a great way to test the Phenom’s wet braking prowess and cornering abilities. Our first stint was over a pretty wet track, and other than our general caution and one spot where it was exceedingly slick, the tires performed as expected.

As things dried out over the next day, we pushed as hard as our abilities would take us and found that the g-Force Phenoms helped give us some confidence to get our speed up, go harder into corners, and brake later. Although it’s hard to say how much of an impact the tires had, relatively speaking, we felt like the Phenoms more than did their part.

Then we got a hot lap with one of the instructors. Holy hell (thanks, Brian, what a lap!). From the passenger seat, we’d say the Phenoms could handle anything a hot shoe could throw at them—at least in the Mustangs that were on hand for the event.

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Ultimately, when it comes to tires, and performance-themed tires in particular, the amount of trust you have in them and their abilities will make you more confident and comfortable in what you and your car can do. BFGoodrich insists the tires it develops are for and about enthusiasts, full stop, and from our short time experiencing what the g-Force Phenoms offer and appear capable of, we’d say putting trust in a set wouldn’t be a huge leap of faith.

Photos by Chris Gill/Westboundary Photography