Bubba Wallace was denied a chance at a third consecutive top-5 to open the season, or at a minimum, a third straight top-10 by the oddest of circumstances last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
During a green pit stop in the middle stages of the races, the No. 23 23XI Racing pit crew were unable to change his left front tire, and ultimately took a three-tire stop and sent Wallace back onto the track. They weren’t able to get the center lock lug nut off and the team concluded they would need to cut the tire off to replace it.
They ultimately did but it cost them 13 laps and finished 35th.
What happened, as it turns out, was a mix-up involving two different types of air guns, both manufactured by the spec supplier for NASCAR, Dino Paoli.
On their previous stop, the left front was too tight, which happens when a tire changer engages the air gun before it is fully connected with the threads on the wheel. When that happens, teams have to pull out a second stronger air gun to loosen the wheel from the center lock.
The problem, as explained by team co-owner Denny Hamlin, is that the loosen-tighten settings are reverse from the standard gun to the one called the ‘Thor’s Hammer’ since it produces up to five times the torque.
“They got the heavy-duty gun,” Hamlin said on Friday at Phoenix Raceway. “It’s the same brand but the off position is the on position, so it’s opposite. Same brand of gun but the off position is in a different spot.
“The guy checked, someone went to pull it off, and tightened it even more with the heavy-duty gun because the switch is on the opposite side. You can’t make it up.”
In other words, the tire changer went to use Thor’s Hammer to loosen the tight wheel and only tightened it further by accident because the loosen-tighten mechanism was reversed. The tire changer got bit by his own muscle memory.
And muscle memory is everything when it comes to pit stops.
Hamlin joked that he’s going to weld all of his team’s Thor’s Hammers to the loosen.
“I don’t think there is ever a reason to tighten anything with the heavy-duty gun for sure,” Hamlin said with a laugh.
The team moves on to Phoenix.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.