Low Profile Mud Tires



With a flair in his hair and walk with a wiggle, Mr. No Heman Tommy took one look at the new low profile mud tires on his pickup and screamed with delight. The low aspect ratio meant better corning and handling on the mountain curves or desert dunes. He'd wanted one for his sports car when he heard about their high performance. The wider tread contact patch meant better traction, and the shorter and stiffer side walls meant he could feel the road better with the steering wheel, get better responsiveness.



But Tommy was hoping that installed on his pickup, he'd be able to get up the muddy hill where he lived. The rains often left a patch of mud 100 feet long and what seemed like straight up. As you might have guessed, when he tried to go up his drive, he wished he stuck with regular off-road tires. By the time he walked into his house, two hours later, he was calling the tire shop and specifically asking for low profiles that would work in mud and snow.

Two days later, he had the car back in the shop and was talking with the service manager. Joey told him he needed tires with wide tread that could climb through the thickest mud. The manager asked him if he wanted the high performance soft rubber with better road traction, or the low performance hard rubber with less traction. He noted that the soft rubber tires would wear out in about 15,000 miles, while the hard rubber would last much, much longer. Tommy opted for the soft rubber.

Two weeks went by and Tommy pulled into the desert parking lot., along with a lot of other cars. This day he was participating with this class 3 4x4 in the Baja 1000, a point-to-point off-road race more than 1,000 miles long through the Mexican desert, ending in La Paz. It seemed like a million vehicles were there to compete in every class from class 1 and up. Even motorcycles and ATVs were present for the competition.

Tommy was inspecting his truck and talking to his co-driver, when all of a sudden the most fantastic thing happened. It began to rain. Not a little rain like in the Midwest, but a galloping heap of throw me down in river and toss me a life jacket rain. In no time at all, torrents of water were rushing through gullies that crisscrossed the hundreds of miles of track. All the drivers realized his was going to be the muddiest race of the century. Lucky for Tommy, he had just had the new low profile tires mounted and balanced.