The F1000 movement started out as a group of guys talking about taking
90s-vintage FCs and putting liter-bike engines in them to create a
low-cost fast car.
Once the rules started to coalesce, the builders got involved. It's
not difficult to see where things went from there.
It's pretty simple, though - if you can build a really fast car for
$20K within a given rule set using junkyard components, Stohr, et al,
can build one that's just a bit faster for $50K. You can't blame the
builder, either; unless you use something like the Club Ford rules to
keep out the new chassis designs, the builders have no choice but to
try to build and sell into any class they can.
This is my fear whenever someone talks about adding shocks, springs,
independent suspension, and/or wings to our cars. You can talk all day
long about 'cheap' suspension components, but unless they are TRULY
spec and single-vendor, the high-$$$ version will creep in just as soon
as someone with extra cash to burn loses a race by less than a couple
of car lengths. Oh, and BTW, when spec parts are single-vendor, that
vendor controls the price.
Look at the cost of clutches, as an example. How many front-running
F500s are actually running a stock Polaris, Ski-Doo, or Artic Cat
clutch with no expensive mods? Yes, you can buy a $200 clutch off eBay
and run it, but you won't win a well-attended national race with it.
I'd bet that almost everyone who has brought home a national-race
trophy with more than 5 entrants has some sort of lightweight cover
and/or adjustment system on the primary, right?
Now, do you really want hydraulic spring perches in this class?
Multi-rate and/or keeper springs? $2K aluminum diffs that need to be
rebuilt after three races? (Don't laugh - I saw a guy explode his
brand-new Miata competition diff last after after only one race). Do
you really want to add 4 lightened CV joints to every car (for IRS),
with all of the lubing and maintenance they require? Now, assuming
that you can find a consistent, reliable, inexpensive, highly-available
shock, how will you avoid the use of other outboard (expensive)
technologies to get around the limitations of the selected shock?
With all due respect to the Legends design, you have to understand that
those are SPEC CARS. They are limited enough in what can be done to
them that the use of a single spec component doesn't automatically
drive more cost elsewhere to make up for it. Our cars are not; we have
multiple designs with a very wide range of approaches. Spec'ing a
single part will simply create new design challenges that will move the
cost elsewhere to get around the spec'd part....and you'll still be
paying the extra $$$ for the spec'd component that is currently not in
the bill of materials.
Please, guys, think this through before making changes. Yes, we need
to move forward if the class is to evolve and survive at the national
level. I believe, however, that it will be FAR too easy to throw away
the unique cost-controlling aspects of our cars that provide our
bang-for-the-buck.
Marshall Mauney
WDC Region
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 3:31 PM
Subject: [F500] What happened to f1000
<<<My take is that $20,000 formula cars became $50,000 formula cars,
=0
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