Patent ID: 7631676

Claim:
A tire comprised of an outer circumferential rubber tread with a supporting underlying carcass, wherein said carcass contains at least one circumferential continuous cord reinforced belt ply underlying said rubber tread and at least one split carcass ply underlying said belt ply composed of a pair of cord reinforced rubber carcass ply elements, wherein the split ply ends of said split carcass ply elements are spaced apart from each other in the central, crown portion of the tire, wherein at least one central rubber layer spans the gap between said split carcass ply elements and overlays the radially outer surface of the split carcass ply ends of said split carcass ply elements; wherein the rubber composition of said central rubber layer contains a dispersion of: A reinforcing fillers comprised of 30 to 100 phr of rubber reinforcing carbon black and synthetic amorphous precipitated silica, and B from about 2 to about 30 phr of a combination of macro and micro reinforcing fillers comprised of: (1) from about 1 to about 25 phr of macro reinforcing filler, and (2) from about 1 to about 25 phr of micro reinforcing filler; wherein said central rubber layer excludes continuous cord reinforcement wherein said macro reinforcing fillers consist of short fibers comprised of at least one of synthetic and natural fibers; wherein said micro reinforcing filler is comprised of particulate syndiotactic polybutadiene having a melting point (MP) in a range of from 170° C. to 225° C.