Proving Grounds Tour

This past week I had the opportunity to accompany a group of ARPA members on a tour of the General Motors Desert Proving Grounds in Yuma. For 56 years this facility was located in Mesa, however, due to the encroachment of residential housing tracts and the loss of secrecy, General Motors made the decision to sell the Mesa complex and leased 2400 acres from the Federal Government at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds. Because they will be sharing the testing facilities and tracks, this agreement will be extremely beneficial to both GM and the Army.

During our tour we were able to see several prototypes of upcoming GM vehicles as the test drivers drove them around the 3.5 mile circle track at high rates of speed. The vehicles had unusual apparatuses applied to their bodies in order to disguise the body shapes. At the speeds the cars were travelling I'm not sure they needed to disguise them. Another highlight of the tour was the 1.5 mile long drag strip. The strip has several movable feature that allow the user to test varying road conditions. At the time of our visit the Army was testing a new vehicle to transport tanks. It was pretty impressive to see a truck driving 65 miles an hour over a bumpy road with a 68 ton Abrams Tank chained to the trailer. Because the Army often has to move equipment at high rates of speed, they use this system to test tank transports prior to sending them to Iraq and Afghanistan.

General Motors has 75 testing engineers at this facility. Most of the engineers relocated from Mesa testing complex when the decision was nade to move the operations. The grand finale to our tour included a stunt show that was put on by GM test drivers, driving 2012 Corvettes in excess of 110 miles per hour.