Llantas Volk Racing & Gram Lights by Rays Engineering

Motor sports culture : The heart of RAYS

Motor sports culture is the basis of RAYS corporate identity. To promote and support this passion, the company quickly became involved in race activities and has come to supply racing wheels to competitors all over the world. Currently RAYS racing wheels feature prominently in F-1 (Formula 1 Championship) and the WTCC (Worldwide Touring Car Championship) centered on Europe, the Japanese Super GT championship, the North American ALMS (American Le Mans Series), and other major competitions.

By natural inclination and market positioning, RAYS is committed to continuing participation in motor sport. At the same time, fierce competition in the arena of motor sports drives RAYS to actively develop forged wheels and cast wheels, and provides motive force for the creation of attractive products. Moreover, racing excites the passions of user, gets them thinking about their cars, and increases their satisfaction with RAYS wheels. RAYS also views racing as a laboratory that generates ideas and refines technology that can be developed for aftermarket wheels.

Around-the-world involvement in racing is also a great advantage when it comes to market strategy. As a means of promotion that strongly appeals to buyers, as a spur to research, and as an ongoing challenge for our engineers, serious participation in racing remains an essential part of the RAYS approach.

Rays Forged Wheel

In the 2007 Formula One Series, the Williams F1 Team raced on RAYS F1 racing wheels. Even though this was the debut season, the wheels proved to be highly competitive and reliable. The harshly competitive environment of F1 brings out the full potential of any parts supplier. RAYS forged wheel technology passed the test with flying colors.

As you can imagine, only the best wheel makers can confidently meet the challenge of F1 racing. While most F1 teams are well equipped to respond to constantly changing load values, what they ultimately prize is lightness. At the same time, solid rigidity for powerful mechanical grip is very important. When it comes to completely order-made wheels, we use every last ounce of ingenuity, both to increase rigidity by even a single percent, and to remove every fraction of a gram of excess weight. Maybe it’s hard to imagine, but our design success has been made possible by know-how that was won from experience with road wheels.At RAYS, the same experts are in charge of planning and designing racing wheels and road wheels. And for both types of wheel the same system, including the analytical equipment and forging presses right down to final quality control, are used. This means that what is learned in working on one type is fed back in to the design and production of the other type. For instance, the VOLK RACING RE30 and the F1 wheel were developed at the same time. The design philosophy and technology of each parallel process influenced the other. As a result, it was possible to achieve the target of creating high performance wheels within the short time allowed. In other words, the F1 wheel is not exotic for RAYS. As an extension of the road wheel design, it is something very familiar. Because they are developed using the same attitude to design philosophy and quality assurance as F1 wheels, it is fair to say that with RAYS forged wheels you get F1 quality.

Forged wheels, which already enjoy a prominent presence in the market, have become quite familiar to car owners. But the use of the forging process does not necessarily produce a winning product. In a market that values styling as much as performance you have to strike a balance. Narrow focus on performance is likely to produce a wonderfully light and strong wheel that does not look good. Conversely, overconcern with styling can sacrifice too much performance.

Forged wheels made by RAYS embody formidable expertise in balancing lightness and rigidity. In designs that are exhaustively analyzed for rigidity, the form of our wheels immediately communicates high performance. Because we so well understand the pleasure that upgrading your wheels can give, RAYS offers various stylish designs of authentic high-performance forged wheels.

Rays Casting Wheel

RAYS even makes a large number of aluminum wheel products using casting methods. Casting, a time-honored technique which involves pouring molten aluminum into dies, does not present the same difficulties as forging. Consequently, casting provides excellent cost performance and allows great freedom of design. Even while casting enables complex design and interesting details, it is essential to ensure that the product retains fundamental strength as a wheel.

No matter how radical it looks, any cast wheel made by RAYS provides excellent performance. Each represents a balance of styling and commitment to core performance born of experience with racing wheels. From this year, in the form of 57 Motor Sport G07WT wheels fitted to the Leon Cupra of SEAT Sport UK, RAYS is competing in the BTCC (British Touring Car Team Championship), which has regulations stipulating the of use cast wheels. While the size and offset of these competition wheels is special, in terms of materials and basic performance, they are the same as RAYS retail wheels.

This autumn at the WTCC meeting in Okayama, Japan, the Chevrolet Lacetti of the distinguished RML Group will be racing on RAYS wheels. As the maker of winning wheels, RAYS has already received the endorsement of numerous teams.

RAYS has a pragmatic approach to creating excellent products and has set out its own JWL+R standards for basic aluminum wheel strength. All the loading values exceed the JWL standards and other original test categories have been added. Every wheel made by RAYS has to conform to basic JWL+R strength standards.

Whether you want a sports wheel or a dress wheel, to assure users that they can buy RAYS products with confidence, every RAYS forged wheel receives a JWL+R Spec. 1, and every cast wheel JWL+R Spec. 2, inspection sticker.