High Rollers

“Stop.”

Like, right now?

“Yah, right here.”

I suppose under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t second-guess professional road-race driver Owen Trinkler about anything — absolutely anything — that has to do with four wheels.

But this is anything but normal and in no way resembles the asphalt tracks that Trinkler knows like the back of his hand. A few moments before, there were actually only three wheels on the ground, or dirt in this case, and now, here we are, staring straight down at a deep dugout ditch that passes for a cow path out here.

“See how the tires bite?”

See? No. But I’m certainly grateful as our Jeep Wrangler sticks like a bug to fly paper on a near-vertical downhill slope of this makeshift off-road course. It’s a torture test scooped out from the infield of the dirt oval track located at the massive Las Vegas Motor Speedway complex. It’s mission is to show that Pirelli, an Italian tire company that has its roots in racing and Ferrari and Lamborghini sports cars, is serious about the North American sport-utility vehicle and truck markets.

This particular event, comprised of off-roading near the breathtaking Valley of Fire, just to the east of Las Vegas, a stint of highway driving to get to the columns of its Mars-red rock and some serious playtime at a quarry, shouldn’t be confused as a scientific or even subjective test of the all-terrain Scorpion ATR (since there are no other vehicles fitted with competitor’s tires), but rather an exercise in marketing and brand awareness. The journalists here today have no way of knowing how they compare, just that they work well in these somewhat manufactured conditions.

Steve Rowe, an engineer with roots in motorsports, also considered the “father of the ATR,” agrees that differences between top brands, are subtle and sometimes so close that style, price and even brand loyalty become the factors governing the purchase. As with most companies, the competition is what drives even incremental improvements.

Sometimes it all comes down to marketing. And here we are: a day playing in the dirt works just fine.

With few exceptions, this is a common style of event with big tire manufacturers.

Pirelli, a smaller specialty company, considers Bridgestone and Michelin to be its primary competitors.

Certainly the race drivers, who are here as tutors and instructors to a group largely comprised of novice journalists seem to like the tires, even off the record, and have enough confidence to put a video camera on the ground, between the front wheels, to record the event.

“We have a camera, so make sure he’s online,” the two-way radio squawks.

“We’ll try,” laughs Jonathan Urlin of the Panoz Racing School, who’s now coaching me in a different Jeep, an extended-length Wrangler Rubicon.

“No guarantees.”

Luckily, I’m just pointing the vehicle as the tires, engine and chassis do their thing.

“The idea is to show what the tires are capable of.

“You can go up this hill as slow as you want and the tires won’t spin at all.”

True enough, it’s evidence that Pirelli has done its homework. It’s also evidence that no matter how good a product you build, it’s not much good unless people know about it.

However, you wouldn’t think image and awareness would be an issue for a company that sells $4 billion in tires all over the world and is hip-deep in racing victories. However, North America represents nearly one third of the world tire market, a big piece of the pie that Pirelli has only a small taste of: about four percent.

Since the sport utility vehicle market is so large here (even if sales of new sport utes is substantially down), both in terms of new and the current number of vehicles already in driveways, it makes sense to build tires that cater to that market, especially performance enthusiasts with sizes to fit wheels up to 24 inches in diameter.

Now the Blue Hummer H2 I’m piloting is just as capable off road as it is on road.

“Racing is our DNA,” says a Pirelli executive.

That’s confidence inspiring since, in the middle of a sunny day in a vacant rock quarry, we’re told to go off on our own, without instruction, and “have fun.”

Without fear, I point the blue H2 to the tallest hill, with sky filling the windshield. Fun, indeed.