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We're talking about glue. Not your basic Elmer's, mind you, but still an everyday adhesive you can find on store shelves. Hard as it may be to fathom, in a sport of high-powered motors, high-priced drivers and high-pressure decisions, a recent NASCAR Sprint Cup race came down to ... glue.

Blame glue, along with a subtle rule change, for the cascade of fallen lug nuts and slower pit stops we've seen this season. And it quite possibly cost one person his job.

With track position always critical, lost time in the pit puts a driver further behind. So teams are re-examining when they glue lug nuts to the wheel before a race.

It doesn't stop there. Tire changers who have spent years doing things the same way struggle to alter how they tighten and loosen lug nuts during pit stops under these new circumstances.

Such a fuss with glue might seem silly. Not for Robbie Reiser, general manager at Roush Fenway Racing. He watched Matt Kenseth, Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards each lose a chance to win at Texas two weeks ago because lug nuts fell off during late-race pit stops. Glue was a culprit.

"It's pretty trivial," Reiser said, "but when you look at it this way &ellipses; it cost us a quarter-million dollars because we made that mistake."

Then there's the human toll: One of Edwards' tire changers was replaced this week before the team headed to Phoenix for tonight's race.

Yes, this is serious.

It's why Roush and other teams have scrambled since the offseason to work on pit stops, which this season are running slower by a half-second or more.

Problems started with a NASCAR change. Lug nuts are tightened on to studs to keep the tire attached, and those studs have been lengthened by about a quarter-inch. That equates to a lug nut needing about five extra turns to tighten (or loosen) it during a pit stop, according to Michael Lepp, who oversees the pit crews at Joe Gibbs Racing.

Of course, that's provided the glue doesn't snap and the lug nuts fall off during a stop. When that occurs, it often is a result of what happened hours earlier.

Before a race, crew members glue the lug nuts over each of the five openings in the wheel the studs go through. Most teams use a yellow-colored weatherstrip adhesive that hardens.

When a crew member slams a wheel on the car during a pit stop, the studs punch the lug nuts away from the wheel, but the glue keeps the lug nuts attached. That should allow the tire changer to tighten all five lug nuts on a wheel in about one second.

The longer stud, though, is stretching the glue farther. Sometimes, the glue snaps and the lug nut falls.

"Because the glue is being stretched to that longer level ... little mistakes will compound themselves," Lepp said.

Reiser admitted that by the end of the Texas race — more than four hours after the lug nuts had been glued to the wheels on a cool day — the glue had dried, was brittle and didn't hold as well under stress. The result was falling lug nuts for the Roush cars.

"In our case last year, being that we didn't have (this) rule, our stud was shorter and the glue did a better job of holding (the nut) on there," Reiser said.

Some on pit road say they've heard about more than one lug nut falling off when teams are changing tires. Often the team facing that problem is not in contention to win, so the incident isn't noticed much by fans or viewers.

Another problem is when the tire is placed on the car, the glue can be stretched so it doesn't keep the lug nut squarely on the stud. Then the tire changer must either readjust the nut with his hand and lose time or try doing it with his air gun as he tightens it — aware that if that doesn't work, his team will have lost even more time.

Seven races into the season, crews are adjusting. It has not been easy.

Tom Dean, front-tire carrier for driver Joey Logano's team, says he's learned to hold the tire in place longer. The tires wobble more with the longer studs, so Dean and other tire carriers must steady the tire longer for the changer to hit his lug nuts.

"There's a lot of hands in there," said Aaron Smith, rear-tire changer on Logano's team.

Smith, in his seventh year changing tires in the Cup series, has altered his routine of tightening and loosening tires.

"It's like I've had to start all over again," he said. "At the first of the year, I was trying to do it the same and none of (the lug nuts) were tight. I still haven't got it to where I'm completely comfortable, but we're way better than where we were at."

So, yes, a subtle rule change can impact a seemingly insignificant thing like glue strength and alter so much more within the blur of a pit stop. It can be maddening and why as Reiser talked about the problems the Roush teams have had this season with lug nuts, his voice grew more agitated.

"That's why this fries everyone," Reiser said. "It's so '101 racing' that you can't stand it."

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com