I had a friend that raced USAC Midgets and was pretty competitive back in the 90's. He stayed on top of things and probably had the first cockpit adjustable shock produced by Advanced Racing. When they were first introduced they were a left rear wheel thing only. What they did was allow the driver to dial in the left rear to either tie-down for heavy tracks all the way to easy up shocks for slick tracks and everything in between. Remember now all of these adjustments were available in one shock. Before them it would have taken 4 or 5 shocks to do the same thing and the crew chief had to make the decision on how the track would change during the race and then install the shock that he considered would best meet the track conditions during that particular race. Guys like Karl Kinser were able to go out and stick an old screw driver in the track and make a much better determination on what was required in the set up department, of course he also had a driver that was pretty adaptive also thus bettering his chances for success. That adjustable Left rear kind of helped the less skilled driver and mechanic to stay on top of things. Back to my friend he installed that fancy $1200.00 shock on his left rear and he said invariably he would check the shock after the race and that young "Hot Shoe" would have it turned in the wrong direction, So he took the pin out of the adjuster, adjusted the shock to what he though would work and let his driver turn the Knob all he wanted.
