This is a trend I've seen happening more and more lately. Sprint car and late model drivers and crew members getting injured badly when mounting tires. Brad Loyet was severely injured mounting a sprint car tire yesterday. Below is the quote from Brad about his accident yesterday.

“First off thanks to everyone for the thoughts and well wishes. It’s safe to say I’ve had much better days! Like to thank my wife Cassie Rocco Loyet for everything she deals with for me. Christian Busche acted fast and likely made a horrible situation better. My family was all here to support me which helped keep my spirits high. I’ll be down and out for a while and am stuck here for a couple days. Sounds like the surgeon did a great job and I should recover fully with time and extensive therapy!”

“Secondly if you own even one Keizer wheel throw it in the trash! I’ve aired up thousands of tires and am very lucky to even be writing this right now. Weld broke clean off on only one side as it did not penetrate both pieces of metal! Spend the money and pay for quality!”

I'm not trying to throw any wheel manufacturer under the bus or put blame anywhere. I want to know how everyone mounts tires in a safe way to avoid accidents like this. I hate to see any racer knocked out of action by an injury and I wish Brad a speedy recovery. I just don't want to see anyone else hurt like this mounting tires.

This also happened about a week ago to Super Late Model veteran Earl Pearson Jr.'s crew guy JC when he popped one a at Golden Isles Speedway in Georgia last Thursday during practice before the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series season started. Said he was just trying to stretch the tire a bit to about 30lb when it popped.

My question is was it a black wheel? Seems like most have failed have been powder coated. I wonder if the process bothers the heat treat of the aluminum

Well the only safe way is to have the tire and rim in a cage so if it explodes its contained. With all the metal geniuses in the racing world I am sure someone could build one. I would also use a remote delivery device so I am not standing there with an air hose in my hand and a finger or worse missing.

Not really a new thing. Back in 2000 the same thing happened to me personally. A clean break on the weld all the way around the wheel (real racing was the brand that got me)

It shattered both bones in my right arm. A painful and lengthy recovery and rehab. My solution was a clip on inflater with a valve that could be turned off/on from a distance.

I wish Mr Loyet the best and hopefully a speedy recovery.

a midget driver from western Illinois was killed in his shop.it happened a couple years ago. I thought a wheel was involved. maybe someone has all the correct details.we are very careful with our semi tires and I guess we will have to do the same with our race car wheels.

Just how much air pressure are people using to air tires? Doesn't seem to me like 10-15 lbs. would create that much havoc. Not like putting 120 lbs. in a semi tire.

Mine was regulated to 30 psi max. However it blew before that 20-25 maybe

The only truly safe way is with a tire cage and a fill hose with a clip-on chuck that gets you away from it.

Better is at least the tire standing up with a long fill hose. Mounting tires with the wheel laying on the floor makes a launch pad if anything fails. Our old shop had a patched hole in the roof from where a steel ag wheel failed and exited the building. With them standing up the air can better escape.

Search YouTube for tire explosion or tire cage explosion. Most of the videos are semi or construction tires, so somebody's going to say race tires don't have that much force. Yeah right, but when you see what they do to massive tire cages imagine what a race tire will do to your unprotected melon.

I clean the wheel bead with mineral spirits and then apply a healthy coating of white Goop hand cleaner to both beads on the tire and wheel. They always pop on by 10 PSI.