I put recessed valve stems on my rally tires 'cause I was always getting dirt packed in around the regular rubber ones making them leak constantly. Recessed stems have a screwed-on metal cover and fit neatly down in the valve well. They're also all metal and built very solid. The issue with my front-left tire (which gets the most abuse on the directional Yokohama set) was that either the mounting nut inside the wheel had loosened or that the rubber sealing washer had shrunk or hardened. In either case, with me running the event and taking care of everyone else I'm left with little time to fidget with my own problems. So no rallying for me that day. I'll need to just de-bead the tire and put a new sealing washer on the stem plus use some good thread-locker.

Although the next rallycross in December will probably see me driving the $75 Jetta since it just came back from the shop, especially since it's a night event too and we're planning to have some fun bolting auxiliary lights all over the thing. We're going to flog it around the course Sunday and see if it holds together first.