ok but lets pretend

 

ok but lets pretend for a moment
that we have a perfectly flat surface.. made of uniform material
and
the tires are all exactly the same: same material, same tread, no distortion
and
the car is exactly the same

why is a wide tire better than a narrow tire

 

If in your imaginary situation where tires do not flex and tires do not wear or slip and you are dealing strictly with static coefficient of friction, there is no difference. This is so far from a real world situation it is pointless to make any type of correlation.

 

ah but see you are wrong
im done arguing this
its not going anywhere

 

the answer is simple...it looks awesome!!!!

seriously though, you're arguing over ideal situations vs real world applications. Like others have said and you have clearly agreed upon, in the real world where surfaces vary, tire pressures and compositions vary, the wider bigger tires assist in grip.

In ideal vacuum type situations, your thoughts are correct as well, a wider tire in an unchanging enviroment under unchanging conditions is not needed over a larger tire. You are also thinking one dimensionally, tires receive loads in multi directions, not just up and down, front to back.

The only situation I think you really want to concentrate the weight of a car through its tires is in ice surfaces, they use skinny tires with studs in them to aid in traction as opposed to larger wider tires with studs. Ice-prepped rally cars a funny to look at because of this, but they're still uber cool! The same also applies to rally cars in gravel and mud stages, the tires are typical more narrow than tarmac only courses.