Four of the more overlooked and underappreciated components on any NASCAR race car: the wheels. Let’s see how they make ’em.
The wheels used on NASCAR Monster Cup race cars retail for around 80 bucks each. This has to be one of the great bargains in all of professional motorsports, where almost nothing is ever cheap and even a spark plug can cost $30. When you consider the tremendous punishment the wheels must take in NASCAR, from the extreme g loadings on the high banks to the fender-banging short-track fisticuffs, it’s fairly amazing, really. A Monster Cup team may put 10 to 15 sets on the ground over a typical race weekend, and the wheels among the most worry-free components in their inventories.
Since the late ’90s, the most popular wheel in all three NASCAR professional series is the Aero Series 59, manufactured by Aero Racing Wheels in little Estherville, Iowa. Through NASCAR regulations and decades of trial-and-error standardization, the wheels are 15 x 9.5-inches in size, with a 5×5-inch bolt pattern and 4.5-inch backspacing, and they weigh 27 lbs each. With their welded, all-steel construction, these pieces aren’t all that different from ordinary production car wheels—in appearance, anyway.
The real differences come down to materials, processes, and quality control, which account for the high reliability and low cost. Thanks to the How It’s Made cable television series, we have this neat little video illuminating the build process. One unique feature: the twin valve stems for use with the Goodyear Inner Safety Liner on the high-banked superspeedways. Video below.
This is considerably more precise than a production wheel.
27lb? I hope that is the wheel and tyre. Wheel should be 10-11lb
A little over 50 lbs with tire and inner liner. Weight was no worry as we can see.
They sure lightened them up. Back when I was slinging them around in the eighties and early nineties, they were about 80 lbs. Wheel, tire, and inner liners. I’ve got a wheel from the earlier era that has to weigh 50+ lbs. by itself.
Lee, your really want to take the chance of bouncing a car off a wall at 200 mph, with a 27 lb. tire and wheel assembly?
Sure they want the wheel and suspension pieces to get wrecked instead of the chassis. But they don’t want them folding like a cheap lawn chair the first time they hit turn three at Talladega, and not absorb any of the impact.