How do you go from designing shoes to some of the lightest racing wheels on the market? That is a question for Patrick Warren, CEO of Lightspeed Racing.
The lighter a race car can be, the more it can use the available power to propel it to higher speeds. Most racing teams work hard to cut weight wherever they can, but very few have dipped their proverbial toes into the materials and types of wheels used by Lightspeed Racing. Focused specifically on lightweight wheels, Patrick Warren has something that drivers want when they head out to the track.
The complicated path to wheels
How can you combine shoes and cars? That question was answered with Patrick’s first job out of college, which took him to Alpinestars, making of motorsports products, including shoes, boots, and gloves. This brought him into the racing world. This included designing the shoes that were used on the first private spacecraft to go into space. He understood the technical aspect of the shoe world, and it seemed a good fit, but a freelance wheel design took things in a new direction.
A fun freelance project
During his time as a shoe designer, Patrick created a wheel design for a racing car for a wheel company, and it was a huge success. The wheel was working well enough that Patrick decided to begin making his own wheel designs. His goal, from the start, was to create lightweight wheels that would improve the performance of the vehicles they were attached to.
As complicated as the change could be, Patrick took a path from shoes for race cars and spacecraft and moved from there to wheel design as the CEO of Lightspeed Racing Inc.
What is the Lightspeed story?
Lightspeed Racing was founded in 2006 with a single goal in mind, but that goal didn’t begin with wheels and wheel designs. The goal was to:
“Use advanced material and structural engineering to make the world’s best lightweight performance accessories for race and street cars.”
The starting point began with the use of carbon fiber to create engine bay covers for Audi and Volkswagen vehicles. This led to creating more products out of carbon fiber and composite materials, which eventually moved into titanium exhaust systems.
The Lightspeed titanium exhaust systems were capable of saving as much as 50 pounds in a vehicle, but that left another area for weight savings still untapped.
Moving into lightweight wheels
With a stated goal of improving performance through light and strong wheel designs, Patrick began designing wheels that would be strong enough for racing, but much lighter than the wheels currently used at the time. The idea was to save as much as 40 pounds in weight, and in 2012 the company began developing the world’s first solid forged composite carbon fiber three-piece wheels.
Although light, capable, and impressive, the carbon fiber wheels were extremely expensive, which led to a different material being used.
Lightspeed Racing makes amazing magnesium wheels
Patrick developed a specifically blended magnesium alloy, which is capable of being lighter than the carbon fiber wheels, and it costs a lot less than the previous models. This proprietary alloy allows the magnesium to avoid rusting, corroding, or sparking while providing the strength necessary for racing teams and street vehicles to improve performance. Using a Lightspeed Racing wheel can immediately improve the braking, acceleration, and fuel economy of a vehicle, simply by losing the weight that is unnecessary for wheel performance and strength.
Customized wheels for every application
Lightspeed Racing wheels aren’t limited to the track. Patrick has designed wheels for street vehicles including a Toyota 4Runner and a Prius, which sounds odd, but when the goal is improving performance, you can see how these wheels can be attractive. The lightness of the magnesium alloy wheels is the number one advantage of wheels from Lightspeed Racing compared to wheels from another company. Each set of wheels can be customized to fit the vehicle and to meet the specifications of each customer based on their needs.
Tested, proven, awarded
Making claims is one thing, proving them is another and Patrick has proven his wheels are the best for several years. Each wheel it’s tested to exceed SAE protocols and then tested on track and real-world street driving. The Lightspeed wheels are fit to drift cars, with drivers putting the wheels through their paces before ever being produced for customers. The Lightspeed Racing team has also won five Global Media Awards for best new product at SEMA, adding yet another distinction.
The man who went from shoes to wheels has the lightest and most impressive wheels in the business. Lightspeed Racing delivers magnesium alloy wheels made for the street or the track, but mostly made to improve the performance of your car.
