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 Mickey Thompson has also been famous for the line of drag racing tires they offer. With this drag racing experience, the engineers were able to come up with a soft, sticky, gripping, tear resistant compound that works superbly on the rocks, whether they're wet or dry. The downside to this is that the compound wears faster than the usual street compound, so you'll be buying tires more often. This won't matter much to competitors who want the best performance at any cost, but to regular four wheelers, you'll have to make the choice between top performance and longevity.
Now, what good is a grippy, beltless tire that gets holes punched in it the minute it hits the rocks? Mickey Thompson addressed that problem, too. The new Competition Claw uses tough nylon construction, instead of polyester. Nylon is a stronger material available for tire construction, even though you have to put up with tire "thump" for a few minutes on cold mornings (who cares?). While tough, the strong, nylon bias ply tires still flex better than most tires do, which Mickey Thompson tells us is a result of removing the belts (and some other reasons they're not telling us). The tire's strength is further enhanced by the use of a cut-resistant compound in the sidewalls.
 These tires work! Recently, on a trip through last year's ARCA competition obstacles in Phoenix, the tires performed much better than the older Mickey Thompsons, Goodyear MTR's, and BFG MT's that were mounted on the other rigs. In many cases, the tires didn't spin at all going up rock faces where the other tires had to spin. There were a couple of obstacles surmounted that no one else was able to make. This testimony was not only gathered from the Competition Claw tester, but from those who owned the other tires!
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