Tires are often the story at Brainerd, with its mile long straight and near-WFO turn one. There are a copious amount of tire-gone-bad-at-Brainerd stories and, even in the best of times, keeping a tire in good shape can be a struggle at BIR. A recent occurance happened in 2000, when John Kocinski showed remarkable pace in practice and qualifying but had a tire go bad in the race while he led.

To combat the heat build-up from the center of the tires, Dunlop runners will use a special rear tire with a thinner center section designed to shed heat. This tire, the 501 Thin, was also used at Elkhart.

Dunlop will have a new Superbike qualifying tire at Brainerd, code-named the 989. This tire is the diameter and profile as the regular race tires, as opposed to the ten millimeter difference of the previously used "Q". That tire caused problems with the ride height and gearing in some cases and earned disgruntled responses from most factory riders over the recent months.