Rule Change Requests for 2024 season

[RichardP]

Shocks, calipers, and rear wings/spoilers are covered by the "readily available" tag in the rules. Of those three, I only see shocks being an actual competitive advantage. Others might disagree.

Thought experiment: What is the actual current value of a set of AST shocks? You can't buy them new but you could buy a set used from someone who has them. Do we think there is anyone who would sell their used stuff for the value currently listed in the CMC rules??? Without asking him, I am certain Josh would pay more than the value in the rules for a set. How much more is the question? Twice the price? $5k? $10K??? Where is that number for either the buyer or the seller?

Would it be fair if Josh paid Michael $5k for his set of shocks with the intent of gaining a competitive advantage?

Richard P.

[Alien]

I've always viewed Readily Available as At the Time from a retailer, not as Always and Forever available. Otherwise, as with ASTs, when the company stops making that model, then that makes all previous ones sold illegal. Same if a company goes out of business, or is sold and changes the name. If Bilstein changes from a double nut to a nylock and thus change the part number, the old part number is now obsolete, all previous shocks are illegal? I don't think that's the intent.

[BryanL]

*For the record I have AST shocks on my car and several spare shocks/parts for them.

Yes, Gary that's the banter I heard from former Regional/National directors around the campfire about a part being available or discontinued. Problem is that was 10-15 years ago and things have changed. Now we have a situation where there is an advantage or there is a perceived advantage in being able to obtain a certain shock or spoiler which isn't available anymore.
To me the problem is when there isn't a viable alternative available and someone running behind me in 9th place would be or believes they would be faster than me if only they had my AST shocks. Same goes for me when I look at a Spoiler which hasn't been sold by the business for years is on the car in front of me after it was adjusted based on the current track conditions.

I don't believe the Intent of the class is to have parts on cars which give a perceived advantage or advantage when there isn't a readily available alternative. I also don't believe the alternative should have to be custom made/machined at any cost as that isn't the intent of this class. For those that want to custom build their own shocks/spoilers they should move to AI. The goal of the class is to protect racers from themselves and limit where someone could spend thousands or ten thousand dollars by having a custom built shock that over the course of testing and sending back for different inserts gives the car an advantage or a perceived advantage. Same goes for a custom built spoiler that is adjustable or through the use of custom adjustable shocks on the back and wind tunnel testing gives an advantage or a perceived advantage.

This isn't about a part like a knock sensor, opti, or wheel where there are plenty of available options which don't provide a performance advantage.

How do you correct the perceived advantage? Get rid of any spoiler/wing and identify the current shocks available for each platform which are allowed to be run just like we identify certain parts which are allowed throughout the rulebook. Give a two year window where you are still allowed to run your custom or unavailable shocks and then become compliant. Reason being is that within two years you will likely be rebuilding the shocks which are causing issue and the cost of a rebuild could be close to the cost of a new set of legal shocks.