Wheels of Gold

When tires do get damaged, they're repaired more often than they used to be. Mark Lyens, equipment manager for the Walsh Group, a national construction company with about 2,000 trucks, says this year he has overseen the repair of 50 tires--to save rather than shred them. Growing demand for such fixes has benefited tire-repair outfits like the Big Horn Tire Shop of Gillette, Wyo., which has more than 30 workers fixing about 70 tires at a time. Repair jobs there can take two days and cost from $800 to $2,000.

Al Chicago, president of the Western states division of the Purcell Tire & Rubber Co., says the shortage is the worst he has seen in his 44 years in the industry. Its scale hit home, Chicago says, when he saw a tire he had donated to a school--where it had been painted for use on the playground--arrive at his shop for repairs, having been harvested by a mining company.

Given the tires' value, one feature that operators like about them is their heft. "At least they're rarely stolen," says Gregg Hoss, CEO of Hoss Equipment, a national mining-equipment company. "It'd be pretty tough to throw 7,500 lbs. of rubber into the back of a pickup." Just you wait.