Pro Mod Tech Arrives With Race Star Beadliner Wheel

The crossover between radial racing and slick tire racing has sparked some incredible innovation over the last few years. Racers want the forgiveness of a bias-ply slick on a bad track but crave the high-speed stability of a radial. Race Star bridged that gap at PRI 2025 with their new 15×13 Beadliner Wheel. This is arguably the most significant suspension and chassis tuning aid we have seen for small-tire cars in a decade. It takes the beadliner concept, which Race Star successfully launched for 16×16 big tires back in 2023, and applies it to the 28×10.5-inch tire used in True 10.5 and grudge racing.

L.B. Davis of Race Star walked us through the logic. He noted that modern small-tire cars are hitting 60-foot times that shouldn’t be physically possible on a standard wheel. The issue is that a standard slick distorts violently at the hit. It creates an oval or H-shape that creates instability and scrub.

The Beadliner Wheel solves this by placing a secondary, inflatable liner inside the slick. This liner acts like a run-flat device, pushing out against the carcass to keep the tire perfectly round throughout the entire run. This means your rollout remains consistent, your contact patch stays flat, and you pick up stability on the top end.

However, this is not a modification for a low-horsepower bracket car. The liner system adds significant mass—about 10 to 11 pounds per wheel compared to a standard tube setup. Physics dictates that adding rotating weight hurts acceleration, so your engine needs to make enough power to ignore that penalty. If you have the power, the trade-off is massive.

You get a tire that drives “smoother and quicker,” according to Davis. It effectively acts as a suspension dampener directly at the contact patch. This technology has been used in NASCAR and Pro Mod for years, and seeing it trickle down to 15-inch wheels is exciting. It does raise questions about fairness in “stock-style” suspension classes, but for the outlaw crowds where the only rule is the tire size, this is going to be the new standard equipment for winning.