Performance
Racing Industry
April
2006 Edition
Mel Kluhsman of Kluhsman Racing
Components in Lockwood, Missouri, has developed a new Practice
Wheel to speed up the process, saving teams precious time
by eliminating the gluing and ungluing part.
"The teams do practice sessions about three times a
week, and they'll probably do eight to ten pit stops per
practice," said Kluhsman, who introduced the time-saving
Teflon-coated lug nuts last season. "They have to glue
up all their lug nuts hours in advance. They may glue up
to 40 or 50 wheels. With our new pit stop wheel, they don't
have to glue up wheels because these nuts are already captivated
on the wheel. It saves them time on gluing and it also saves
them time on cleanup because after they've knocked those
nuts offf the wheels they've got to take a wire brush and
clean all the glue off the wheels and the nuts. It takes
a lot of time."
"With this practice wheel, the nuts don't fly off,"
added Kluhsman, who also offers wheel checkers along with
16 different types of lug nuts. "They can hit this
probably ten more times than they could do it the other
way. When they're practicing and warming up, the nuts never
fly off, so they can go on/off, on/off, on/off and they
don't lose any time. This will also increase their accuracy
on race day. You have to hit the nuts straight for them
to go on. We're here to save the racers money. Our goal
is to extend the life of their components, reduce the workload
at the track, and develop products that allow them to perform
their job faster and keep them safer."
