i was told i have to screw my slicks to the wheel or i will spin the whel and blow a tube. first i can see this happening on a 10 second car but on a low 13 second ride would the screws be needed?

 

If your are running a tube you HAVE to screw the tire period since the tire will spin and tube will stay put, evntually putting alot of stress on the valve stem and sooner or later ripping it off and then you have problems.

More and more guys are getting away from screwing rims. I personally used to have the tire shop use bead glue or silicone when installing my slicks. To date have never used a tube btw. Before the bead glue running in the 13.5 catagory was spinning the rim on average 2" per race.

After bead glue or silicone was used zero rim spin in the tire.

Once you start getting faster, screwing is not a bad idea since it will help keep the bead sealed to the rim at high rpm's and high mph since the tires grow and put alot of stress on the bead since it's trying to be pulled away from the rim.

From experience I'd just glue them and call it a day. Maybe mark the rim and tire first time out and see what happens, but even if it does spin a little running 13's it will most likely NOT affect ET.

 

I started using tubes to help keep my 60' times consistant. My tires are screwed to the rims. I have 8 screws on each side of the rim. It's a little overkill but like mentioned above, when I ran tubeless, I was able to see my tire slipping on the rim after a weekend of racing.

Slicks also have very thin sidewalls. When I had MT ET Drags on the car with no tubes and it was sitting in the rain, I was able to see tiny air bubbles coming right through the sidewalls.

 

thank you both for the reply's

this is the first year i'm running pro, and i was told by a fellow racer that it would be wise to use them just didn't see alot cars running my times with them. i was told 16 screws on each side of the rim. seems like overkill stephan you say you have 8 totallling 16 per wheel correct? that sounds like what i'll do.
i have ordered tubes with metal valve stems that lock to the rim also.
again thanks.

 

Somewhere I think it was Goodyear that reccomended 16 per side, but most of us local guys not running heads up have 8 per side of the rim becasue it's quick easy and works. You start installing 16 per side I'd be tempted to just order beadlocks.

 

I run 8 screws per side (16 per wheel) on my 14x32 slicks w/tubes - absolutely no movement (3500# car running into high 1.2 60 ft times). I tried running tubeless/screwless a few weekends ago on a new set of Hoosier QT Pro's, and marked the tires/wheels after each pass. One side moved an average of 2-3 inches after each pass, and the other moved a lot more and varied greatly, anywhere from 4 inches to 2/3 of a turn after each pass. I tried swapping them from side to side to see if I could try to get them to "lock in" by reversing their rotation, but after a half dozen passes, it didn't look like it was going to work. I got some Camel bead sealer that I'm thinking about trying, but I noticed severe wrinkle marks on the side walls of both tires (in the mold release agent on the sidewall surface), indicating to me that I probably should put tubes in to help stiffen up that area. They do hold air though without any leakage.