Aircraft (B24) Wheel

On the day when there were WWII aircraft in Flint,  I tried to get not only total whole aircraft photos, but components as well.  I focused on Engines, Internal Tubing and such.  One of the components was tire and wheels.  This one is from the B24.
Warning: This is more of a study in processing and workflow for me.  Plus, my new version of On One's software arrived yesterday - and I needed to play with it.
With this photo, I wanted to split the processing to two elements.  I wanted the tires - and then everything else.  In the end, I didn't wind up with too much separation from the original.  Again, this is more of a study effort.
This is the original RAW image.

1/400   f/9
EV 0.0
Aperture Priority
ISO 400
Focal Length 48 mm

My intention is to lighten up the silver/white ares of the strut and wheel while trying to keep the tire dark.  And of course, add some HDR effects.
The first step is to pass it through he HDR software to get a base look of what I like.  I'm going with a little overall saturation and sharpening.

I have the inner wheel and two red pins much closer to where I'd like them.  The tire is nowhere close to what I'd like to see, so that has to get changed.
On my base layer, I will darken the entire layer.  I'm concentrating on the tire only.

I've moved the histogram a bit to the left.  The tire is a bit more where I want it to be.  The next step is to get the strut and wheel back in.  For this, I masked out the tire on a layer.

I'm keeping the from the original HDR image.  When the two are merged together, this is the result.

I now have an image to make some subtle changes on.  I'll add some light HDR effects, sharpening and push the reds a bit to get the pin color to stand out without saturation the whole image.  I also tried something else and that is not using the full opacity of the adjustment layer, just used 75% over the original image.  Little attempt to dial it back some.
This would be the final image.

For a presentation image, I'm going to crop it a bit more than normal for me.  I'd like to center the strut and make the tire symmetrical.  I'd like all tire on the corners.