The performance tire market represents a huge part of the SEMA Show year in and year out, and with shoes for everything from drag racing to offload vehicles to performance muscle cars, Mickey Thompson is always right in the thick of it. This year, they’ve really outdone themselves and drawn quite a bit of attention with the release of a pair of new tie designs — one of which is a brand new, never-done-before tire they believe will prove to be quite popular with weekend warrior drag racers.

The newest tire in Mickey Thompson’s drag racing arsenal, the Pro Bracket Radial, is aimed directly at the bracket and index racing world, with options of 28×10.5-15, 28×9-15, and 26×10.5-15

Said Mickey Thompson’s Tom Kundrik: “This tire is intended for your weekend warrior bracket racers, who go out there and put 200 passes a year on their cars. They’ve got great stability on the top end, and have better air retention and less rolling resistance — the average racer will pick up a full tenth and two miles per hour just switching from a slick to this. We’re just really excited about this tire, because it’s never been done before.”

Another new tire for Mickey Thompson unveiled this week is the ET Street R (the “R” is for Race), which will come in both radial and bias ply flavors. M/T is targeting these at the high modern performance muscle car market, and is, as Kundrik puts it, a race tire that you can drive on the street. The ET Street R blends the technology in the Street Radial Pro and the ET Street tires, and will replace the ET Street Radial II. These tires will be offered in 17-inch and larger diameters, and are fully DOT-approved.

The bias ply ET Street R will replace the previous ET Street tires, and will include a new size for the Pro Street-style cars — like the high-horsepower Drag Week Unlimited cars. This new tire is essentially the company’s revered 3191W “Bubba” tire that’s been confirmed to DOT standards.

There will be 13 popular 15- to 18-inch tire sizes of the ET Street R, with eight radial sizes and five bias ply, and all will feature proven R2, M5, and X5 compounds, which are the same used in Mickey Thompson’s drag racing slicks.

And finally, another new tire line that Kundrik believes will be an absolute home-run, is the ET Street S/S, which is an expansion of the ET Street Radial line. These are drag strip-ready radials, built upon proven drag racing compounds, with a tubeless radial construction. The S/S will be optioned in 18 sizes, ranging from 15 to 20 inches.

“The Vipers, GTR’s, Z06 Corvettes, and similar cars will all really be able to take advantage of these tires, and for some of the modern performance cars, they will be direct OEM replacements,” says Kundrik.

Kundrik says Mickey Thompson has improved the wet-driving performance by 20 percent with the S/S tire, without losing any overall performance.