Here is one way you can make a tire,

1) Create | Nurbs Primitive | Circle

2) Right click circle and select Control vertex. Select the vertex's shown.

3) Hit the r key for scale and scale the select control points up until you have a rounded rectangle

4) hit f8 to leave component mode and rescale the circle to look like shown.

5) Modify | center pivot. Hit home (mac) insert (windows) to select the pivot point of the object drag the pivot out like shown.