[thefro526]

We've bent quite a few #10's in the same spot over the years. What I've found is that in a perfect world, the sprockets should be bolted directly to the wheel, not spaced out at all. I've seen quite a few teams run into issues when spacing beyond about 1/4" or so.

Did you space your sprockets away from the wheel at all?

On the subject of bolts, we've usually been able to get away with common alloy steel bolts from McMaster Similar to part number 91251A353. They're made from a steel that's arguably the same as Grade 8 and hold up really well. In 2008, we used fully threaded Grade 5 10-32's from home depot that sheared between the threads at one of our off seasons - so now we try to stay away from fully threaded bolts.