Tire manufacture dates and safety

[RandallNeighbour]

Just saw a report on network news about companies selling people tires manufactured a number of years before as new. One guy bought 4 year old tires as new and put them on his son's car. He drove on those tires for 5 years and they were effectively 9 years old. A tire blew out on a freeway and the young driver died in the resulting rollover.

So I went out to the garage to check out the tires on my cars... and discovered the new tires on the BMW (my DD) purchased this calendar year were a year old when sold to me through tirerack.com. I'm ok with that because I will wear the tread off in two or three year's time easily enough.

However, the Kumhos on the Boxster's track rims have a manufacturing date of 40th week of 2005, yet they only have less than 4000 miles on them and look almost new. I usually don't drive well enough in the twisty bits to get up to 110 mph or more on the straightaway the way the more experienced drivers do.

Am I safe for the high speed DE next month?