At the 2025 PRI Show, one of the biggest topics making waves in the drag racing world is the release of beadliner wheels for small-tire racing. If you caught the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals last week, then you already know how hot the True 10.5 N/T class is—speculation is that these cars are running high 3s in the eighth mile on a 28×10.5-inch slick.
Beadliner wheels first appeared in the Pro Mod world a few years ago. In fact, we spotted a video from Stevie Jackson in 2018 talking about using them on Shadow. When radial racing really took off, it sparked innovation in the slick-tire world, blending knowledge from both sides for a “best-of-both-worlds” setup: the forgiveness of a slick with the stability of a radial. However, until recently, beadliners were only available in 16-inch sizes for big-tire cars. This year, Race Star set out to change that.
“Race Star is known for its 16×18 beadliner that we came out with in 2023, and we’ve done really well with it. We looked at the 28×10.5 racing, which is basically a Pro Mod car on a small tire,” said L.B. Davis of Race Star. “We decided that we needed to try to come out with a 15-inch wheel that could handle a liner wheel and tire setup.”
Race Star worked with Hoosier to develop a 15×13-inch beadliner wheel combination for 28×10.5 slicks. “Hoosier was making a liner tire for the ARCA Series, and we used their ARCA Series liner along with a 28×10.5 drag-race slick for the outside. It mounts up fantastic. In 10 minutes, you can have this liner and tire setup mounted on the wheel,” Davis said proudly.
“When you put a liner wheel/tire setup on, you’re adding weight to the car. A conventional tire is going to weigh 10–11 pounds less than this. So you need a car that has enough horsepower to pull that wheel out of the hole. And what the wheel does, the way it’s made, you’re no longer pulling an H-shaped tire out of the hole. With the liner setup, you’re pulling a perfectly round circle, which delivers power to the ground smoother and quicker. You should have more control of the car and more mile-per-hour at the end of the run.”
If you didn’t know, a liner is much different from a tube. A liner is essentially a secondary tire inside the tire. It has been used in NASCAR for over a decade, and the technology dates back to the original run-flat tire developed in 1966.
Seeing this kind of technology transfer is exciting, but the real question remains—will it be allowed? Does it defeat the purpose of having a small-tire slick class if you can gain an edge that overcomes the tire’s inherent limitations?
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