The invention relates to a tire having a rubber tread comprised of cap/base construction where the tread outer cap rubber layer contains the running surface of the tread and the tread base rubber layer underlies the tread cap layer wherein the base layer provides a transition zone between the tread cap layer and the remainder of the tire carcass and is not intended to be ground-contacting. For this invention, the tread base rubber layer is comprised of three distinct zones, namely a circumferential annular central rubber zone positioned between two lateral annular rubber zones. In one aspect, the rubber tread cap layer and zoned rubber tread base layer are co-extruded together to form an integral tread rubber composite.