The left-rear wheel of the modified driven by Tommy Catalano went flying. The incident occurred on lap 97 of the September NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (NHMS).
“Just before the wheel broke off, I felt a slight vibration,” Catalano, of Ontario, New York, said. “NHMS is big and fast — it’s not like I had time to figure it out.”
Eventually, Catalano found out the source of that vibration firsthand.
“The loss of the wheel at the end of the frontstretch caused my car to spin around,” said Catalano. “The incident wrecked both sides of my car in one shot.”
Fortunately, Catalano was not hurt by the crash. He sat in a full-containment seat from The Joie of Seating, with a Schroth six-point harness. He wore a Bell BR1 helmet and a Simpson Hybrid head-and-neck restraint system.
The accident did not hurt his Troyer Race Cars chassis, either, but damaged many other parts, such as the body, suspension components, and the rear end.
The loss of the wheel puzzled Catalano. Brian Gill, of Bassett Racing Wheel, which manufactured Catalano’s wide-five wheels, offered his assessment.
“Holes one, two, and three are super oblong,” Gill said of the loose wheel, referencing our lead photo for the story. “The holes got big enough to clear the one-inch lug nut. It’s ‘Loose Lug Nuts: 101.’”
Catalano’s team installed the wheels prior to the race. They pitted twice, but never changed tires. In lieu of conventional lug nuts, they used glueless ones. As you may deduce, these nuts remain on the wheel without glue to expedite pit stops. The glueless lug nuts connect to a spring attached to the wheel via a screw drilled into the wheel. (Follow this link for an example.)
“I ran [the glueless lug nuts] on the Race of Champions [Modified Series] and had no problems,” said Catalano. “We drilled the holes as instructed and mounted the wheel using 75 lb-ft of torque.”
Gill confirmed the small hole for the screw typically does not significantly affect the integrity of the wheel.
“We never had issues with wheels cracking due to drilling a hole [for a glueless lug nut],” Gill said. “We have had people use five-on-five wheels successfully for number of years [with glueless lug nuts].”
Tommy Catalano said his team also slightly honed the taper of the wheel’s lug nut holes to compensate for the thickness of the spring. Gill discourages this practice.
“You don’t want to modify the lug-nut seat chamfer,” said Gill. “If you don’t have a correctly matching taper between the lug nut and its seat on the wheel, it allows the lug nut the back off, even if you torque it to 100 lb-ft. The surface area between the lug nut and wheel puts the load onto the stud. If you the taper the hole, the lug nut will probably not make full contact.”
Dylan Caldwell, of Pit Stop USA, cautioned racers on the maintenance of glueless lug nuts.
“The springs [of the glueless lug nuts] could also bend from use,” Caldwell said. “That’s why replacement springs and mounting screws are sold separately.”
Several teams on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and other tour-type modified series use glueless lug nuts without issue. Some choose the glueless lug nuts as it allows them to quickly swap tires from front to rear. When possible, Gill still prefers gluing lug nuts over using glueless ones.
“There is not a lot of room for error with a wide-five wheel,” said Gill. “Fatigue can happen quickly if the lug nuts are not tightened to the recommended 85 lb-ft of torque.”
However, gluing lug nuts requires care, too.
“Before you apply the glue, clear the [lug-nut] seat area of rust, old glue, powdercoat,” Gill said. “you want to apply the glue to bare steel.”
Failure to clean the [lug-nut] seat area can result in misalignment of the lug nut with the stud.
“If you line the lug nut up improperly, hit it with a gun hard, it may cross-thread [the stud],” said Gill.
Tommy Catalano said the experience will change his pit-stop game.
“I’m going to use glue any time I can,” said Catalano. “If I’m in a race where I need to swap wheels, we’re going to make sure they are torqued correctly and double-check that the nuts are set properly in the hole.”
Sources
Bassett Racing Wheel
Burlington, Wisconsin
888-888-7199
bassettwheel.com
Pit Stop USA
Meridian, Idaho
866-722-3432
pitstopusa.com
The Outside Groove Director of Photography has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
