Dale Earnhardt Jr & Jeff Gordon’s Former NASCAR Crew Chief Explains the Mechanism of the Single Lug-Nut Wheel

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest changes in the new car in NASCAR is the wheels. The Next Gen car is replacing the traditional five-lug nuts wheels from the Gen 6 car to single nut wheels.

Naturally, this would increase the pit stop speeds and decrease the time cars stay in the pit stop.

And recently, NASCAR analyst and Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr’s former crew chief Steve Letarte gave a brief look around of the new single nut wheels. “There’s a lot of moving parts and things to learn, even (for) the mechanics in the garage,” he said.

“We used to see five lug nuts. Now it’s just a single lug, like an IndyCar or a sports car.”

Letarte continued, “So instead of like the hecks, it actually has all these indentations and the socket has a spline that goes into that. When you take that lug off, the wheel comes off, the next wheel goes on.” “And then unlike in the years past when you’d glue lugs and stuff on, that same lug nut will be used every single time the same wheel goes on and off during a pit stop.”

He also showed the specific part which determines whether the wheel is all the way on and locked in tight or not. This could again come in handy considering we’ve seen cars leaving the pit area with a loose wheel that, well, runs loose as soon as the driver hits the track.

Dale Jr’s exciting description of the new car in NASCAR

During the recent testing at the Daytona circuit, Dale Earnhardt Jr. filled in for some Hendrick drivers to test the new car. And his assessment of the new car points to the fact that NASCAR is indeed heading into a new, exciting era simply because the car is radically different.

“This is a completely different car from the ground up,” Earnhardt Jr. said.

In fact, it has been claimed that the only thing that is common between Gen 6 and the Next Gen is their seats; it’s that different. And whether or not NASCAR succeeds in its ambitious objectives, we’ll find out soon.