Last week when I left town for Salt Lake City to attend the Nitto Winter Ride N Drive media event, I was wearing my typical Dickies shorts, flip flops and a BangShift.com shirt. I had an extra change of clothes, toiletries, and my helmet along with my camera and laptop. And… I wasn’t really expecting to have a ton of fun. I also wasn’t expecting there to be so much trickery in snow tires. I was wrong on both counts. It was a super cool trip, with really nice people, and I learned way more about winter tires than I ever thought I cared about. I also gained a huge respect for the Nitto NT90W. In fact, they are so good it just might make you enjoy the snow with regards to driving. I propose we start Snow Cross. Auto cross on the snow. I would own it!

But let me fill you in on the features of the new NITTO NT90W, before you want the video of me goofing off and having fun all in the name of tire testing that is at the bottom of this blog item.

First off, there is no doubt that when you look at an NT90W, there is something different about it compared to your regular tires. The tread pattern is a little less swoopy, as well as asymmetrical, and every single bit of tread that could come in contact with the ground is siped like none other. And those sipes are very technical. Not only do they have two dimensional shape, but also 3 dimensional shape that creates an interlocking effect. This allows the sipes to open and grip the road and snow when needed, but also to push themselves closed when under load for increased control and confidence on the road. They work by the way, I lived it.

And when NITTO’s William Hong and Alan Ngo presented us with all the information on what makes the new NT90W tick, we could see that the NT90W has circumferential and lateral grooves to help evacuate water and slush, but they are wider and cleaner shaped than a typical all weather tire. In one of the less annoying instances of “green” engineering, NITTO has also put some interesting ingredients in these tires.

To soak up water, and then release it as it dries, the NT90W features bamboo charcoal within it’s tread compound, which helps the tread further handle the rigors of frozen, wet conditions. Since bamboo is one of the most renewable plants on earth, bamboo charcoal most certainly counts as green.

But the real kicker on green technology in the NITTO NT90W is the crushed walnut shells that are included in the tread compound. Crushed walnut shells? Yep, just think media blasting, but on a slightly different scale. You see incredibly fine walnut shell is introduced into the tread compound so that, as the tread wears, more and more tiny, sharp, pieces of walnut shell become exposed and provide sharp edges to help with traction on very slick surfaces like ice and packed snow.

The technology is all well and good on paper. But paper doesn’t cut it when you are talking about tires. So to put them through their paces, we went to Miller Motorsports Park and drive Infinit G37X sedans. Emergency accident avoidance, acceleration and braking, hill climbs, show skidpad, and a handling course that included chicane’s, slaloms, and more were there for us to use in order to gain an opinion on the performance of these tires in comparison to both the OE all weather Goodyear that was on the G37X stock, and Nitto’s own Motivo all weather tire as well. I’ve done my fair share of tire testing, but never anything in the snow. It was a riot and we learned a lot.

The most important thing I learned is that Nitto NT90W tires work. Like really really well. If you need new snow tires this year, then hit up a Nitto dealer. For more information visit www.NITTOTIRE.com.

Editors Note: I’ve run Nitto tires on cars of mine in the past, and have been around several Nitto equipped cars in recent years. I have always been happy with the performance of their tires, regardless of whether I was treating them right or not. But after attending this event, and really getting to talk to the engineering staff, I would place Nitto higher up on the tire company hierarchy, and feel confident sharing that with you. If you haven’t looked at Nitto’s lately, keep in mind that they do have some sizes that would be really good on hot rods.