One of our absolute favorite things to do in the world is to visit the people that sponsor BangShift and see how they do what they do. In this case, some great timing meant that we were going to be able to spend the day at WELD Racing’s world headquarters and manufacturing facility in Kansas City, Missouri. The company was throwing an open house celebrating a manufacturing expansion where they were adding jobs, production lines, and equipment to their facility.
The story of Weld Racing is an interesting one and we’re happy to report that the story is on a very positive trend. The current ownership group of the company really understands what consumers are looking for and the fact that American made quality is high on their list suits us just fine. This is a company that is going strong and only getting stronger by the minute as we saw first hand in Kansas City.
One of the things that some people may not know about Weld Racing is that they have added some cool brands to the fold. CCW is one of them. Anyone in the pro-touring world is certainly familiar with CCW and their range of beautiful and functional wheels. WELD is helping that brand expand and grow as well. There’s also the HiPer brand which manufacturers wheels for the UTV and power sports market. We saw these pieces being manufactured in the facility and you will see some photos of them below in the gallery. Fascinating stuff because who would have ever thought of plastic wheels, right?!
As part of the festivities notable Weld Racing ambassadors like Clay Millican, John Force, Erica Enders-Stevens and others were on hand. The mayor of Kansas City spoke as did company leadership. It was a fantastic day and the real fun for us started when we were given a really cool behind the scenes tour of the facility that Weld Racing calls home. Lots of hardworking American men and women were on the job making the wheels that will ultimately end up on the high performance cars and trucks that roll down America’s highways and byways today.
Between the wheels that we saw being CNC machined from billet to the forging processed and welding processes that the company maintains on their other product lines, their world class QC testing center, and the “guest star” cars that they had around the plant, it was one heck of a day.
We have to talk about the testing center a little because it is one of the very, very few that operates like those does in the industry. There are machines that simulate the wheels taking massive hits like a pothole or other obstruction would deliver. There are machines that try to literally rip the centers out of the wheels, and there is even one machine designed to punish a wheel a tire into submission to see how the bead sealing and grip are. Then there is a QC lab where advanced instruments allow the wheels to be tested right off the line our out of the testing side of the process. What we saw was a very modern manufacturing operation that is keeping itself at the forefront of quality and precision.
What was the coolest thing we saw? Between the robots involved in a couple parts of the process, to seeing how the beastly Delta One wheel begins as a massive 100+ lb part that looks like a coffee table, all of the CNC equipment running, and the race cars, we’re not sure! Hell, even the lobby was full of cool cars and stuff to look at!
TO CHECK OUT ALL OF THE COMAPNY’S STUFF, CHECK OUT WELDWHEELS.COM
Click the images below to see more of our tour inside WELD Racing –
