Good points all. Your contact patch will also get smaller as you go faster. I learned this one day while riding with some squidly friends while my rear tire was flat. We were riding stupid-fast on a curvy stretch of road above Borrego Springs called the Montezuma Grade. When we stopped for gas, one of them cracked a joke about me "running racing slicks." When he persisted in the lame joke, I finally saw that my back tire was flat and that the rubber had melted/revulcanized and was smooth, shiny, flat and stuck to the concrete pad of the gas station.
Because we were riding at 60-90mph, the centrifugal (or centripetal) force was enough to stand the tire up, even while doubling the posted speed limit around some of the corners.
But for some reason, riders with "skinny" back tires get some kind of gym-shower anxiety. And even though it makes a bike handle like a truck, I've seen impossibly wide tires forced onto narrow rims, with the tire's shoulder almost touching the chain. The price of looking cool, I guess.
-CCinC
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