During the 1999 and 2000 seasons I raced on 16"x9.5" (5.5" backspacing) Centerline Billet Star wheels with 265/45R16 Kumho V700 Victoracer tires (as seen in some of the photos on the web site). I loved the way my car handled with the 16"x9.5" wheels, but didn't like the look of the thick spoke star design. For the street I used 17"x8" TSW Hockenhiem R wheels with 245/45R17 BFGoodrich Comp T/A ZR tires and loved the look of those wheels but always wished they were a little wider (8" is the widest TSW offers) because they looked so whimpy on my car compared to the width of the Centerlines and Kumhos. I don't drive the car on the street much anymore and I was getting tired of swapping between the two sets in between races, so I decided to sell both sets of wheels and tires to buy one set that would work for racing and would still look great for those occasional street cruises.

I was able to sell both sets for enough money to purchase the new set that I had decided on. After a few months of looking at many different wheel styles and comparing costs vs. weight and availability in the 4-lug bolt pattern, I decided to get the Centerline Thruster 806 in a 17"x9.5" with the same 5.5" backspacing as my old 16"x9.5" wheels. I also planned on using 255/40R17 Kumho V700 Victoracer tires, which have an almost identical tread and section width as the 265/45R16 V700 tires I had used during the previous season but were about half an inch shorter overall (bonus: better overall gear ratio!). I had been warned by several people on the RR/AX-Mustang e-list that going from 16" to 17" wheels/tires on a pony car might hurt my corner exit traction on an auto-x course due to the shorter tire sidewall, but I thought that the looks of a 17" wheel was worth the trade off.

I placed an order with Summit Racing for the wheels (free shipping, whoohoo!) and even though I knew the wheels would be special order, I was left with the impression that everything would be fine with my order. Two weeks later, I got a post card in the mail from Summit telling me that my order had been canceled because the wheels I ordered were "no longer available from the manufacturer". Keep in mind that I had no wheels and tires at all for my car at this point (I had borrowed some factory 5-star wheels from a friend so that I could at least move the car in and out of the garage if necessary), so I was very pissed off. The next day, I called Centerline myself to confirm this, and they told me that they still offered that wheel in that size and bolt pattern but that it was a special order item (whew!). So, I called Summit back and told them that I had talked to Centerline and that the wheels were indeed still available and that they needed to re-submit my order ASAP. After my salesperson investigated the situation a little further, he discovered that the 3rd party vendor who they purchase their wheels from did not have that particular wheel size/bolt-pattern in their database since it was special order, so my order automatically got canceled. He called the vendor and explained the situation, and was able to get my wheels ordered for me, but told me that it would probably be 2 months before they were shipped from the Centerline facility (yikes!). I agreed to that since it was during the off season and didn't need them right then, but it would be cutting it close to have them by the first event of 2001. A month later, I got another post card in the mail from Summit telling me that my wheels were still on backorder and the shipping date had been delayed another two weeks. So, I ended up having to run the first event on borrowed wheels.

A few weeks later my new wheels FINALLY arrived, but when I pulled them out of the box to measure and weight them (22lbs each... kinda heavy for racing, but at only $250 each I can't complain), the backspacing came out to 5.25" instead of 5.5" like I had ordered. (WTF?!?! Centerline doesn't even offer any wheels with a 5.25" backspacing!) I didn't want to send them back because I had already waited so long to get them, so I went ahead and test fit them on the car, and since I had previously tweaked the front fenders and rolled the rear fender lips they fit without any problems (just barely!). After I brushed the centers of the wheels to give them a unique two tone appearance, I was very happy with the overall look of the car with the new wheels.

UPDATE 2002: After racing the full 2001 season on the new wheels, I have come to the conclusion that the increase from 16" to 17" didn't hurt the performance of the car at all. In fact, I was able to win several events overall, which I thought was impossible when using the 16" wheels during the previous seasons. So, I'm obviously really happy with them, but... I'm still a little bitter about the backspacing situation. Oh well.