Ever notice the center lock nuts on some Porsche race cars? Unlike the black/silver RS Spyder wheel nuts available on street cars, some racing Porsches will have red nuts on one side and blue on the other.

Notice the red nuts on the driver's side above (you can click on the image above for a larger version)

A number of you wrote to us and wanted to know why? The colors aren't just aesthetic; Red nuts are right hand threads and blue nuts have left hand threads. What's the difference? Simple, right hand threads are nuts that we're all familiar with. You know, "righty tighty, lefty loosey".

In racing, it's not uncommon to install right hand threaded nuts (red ones) on the left (US driver's side) and left hand threads (blue ones) on the right (passenger side). Teams do this so that all the wheels can come off by turning the nut in the same direction (toward the front of the car). In addition, and perhaps more importantly, this staggered setting ensures that the nuts won't loosen when the car is moving/accelerating.

Note the blue nuts on the passenger side of the 918 RSR

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*Special thanks to Orbit Racing for help with answering this question