Limiting revs to keep racing costs down (any thoughts?)

[Al Weyman]

I was origiinally responsible for penning the rules of a reasonably successful modified saloon car race series and at first we had a selling/buying plate in an effort to keep costs down but this was not really workable. I did at one time concider a selling plate on the engine alone but this was also impractical.

Well it also occured to me that revs are the real things that cost money to achieve and also what destroys engines and if revs could be kept within feasable limits then the need for exotic (read expensive) components such as steel rods, cranks and valve trains would be eliminated. I proposed something like a 500 or a 1000 rpm limit over the models manufacturer's redline limit. Or if that was not possible a limit for the class, i.e. smaller engines would be allowed to rev higher.

This, at the time (back then 8 or 10 years ago) was rubbished as being uninforceable and maybe it is. However with the recent strides in technology I was wondering if this idea was worth another look. Does anyone have any have any thoughts on this and if it would be possible to build an electronic device that could be set and sealed and checked by the scurtineer on a regular basis and be completly untamperable but would limit the revs to the set limit.

This idea if practical has always appealed to me as I see it as a very effective way of cutting costs by eliminating the neccessity of expensive components and expensive blow ups and if it worked could be adabted to a variety of different championships or am I just talking rubbish.