Tony
It seems that more and more people are coming down with "Adjustable Shock Anxiety Syndrome". Sure sorry to hear that you ave been diagnosed with the disease.
Many "Progressive" type people are always worrying about the well being of others with no consideration for their own well being and make laws and rules to save people from themselves. Many times these rules are made with a feeling of compassion for others rather than basing their decisions on the real facts that are present. Smart wealthy people buy substantially better products than uninformed poor people tend to buy. The poor person is faced with spending more and more money replacing worn out or defective products while the smart person simply maintains his more expensive investments, thus saving a great deal of expense in the long run and making them richer because they are not throwing good money after bad. I said investment because some purchases are investments while others are only a reoccurring write off.
To a racer good shocks are an investment and pay for themselves many times over. Many things on a race car are an investment and may be changed from chassis to chassis many times over. Why would a racer want to install junk that will cost him in the long run.
We have been racing on a set of ARS adjustable shocks for about 15 year now I guess. They were expensive to purchase, but over the years of racing if one gets damaged we simply send it back and get it fixed at a fraction of the cost of a disposable shock. Cockpit adjustable shock are great for dirt racing. If the track changes and it usually does a knowledgeable driver can adjust to compensate, same thing if your mechanic misses the set up. I would call that racing smart not racing out of budget. I would much prefer my adjustable shocks to a fancy paint job and lettering. Good shocks would also win out over an expensive engine accessory (in our case Mechanical fuel injection or trick air cleaners). That extra horsepower isn't any good if I can't hook it up is it?
Most of us race on a limited budget, spending it on what we think is most important to our success, why limit a racer to his choices for success. Racing is not cheap, if Joe has spent his money on a set of what he considers outstanding shocks that will make him competitive how can it save him money to force him to buy a set of shocks that he would only use in your series.
Were I designing a car to race in doors it would probably be a car with no suspension Ala GoKart, it would have a ton of left side weight and would be able to be carried by two people. For your race shocks should not make that much deference. Adjustable shocks should not be any advantage to racing indoors, but buying $600.00 worth of shocks for one race a year would probably be a big added expense to a shoe string racer trying to race smart and not extravagant.
Honest Dad himself
