2002 SEMA Auto Show - Holeshot

It's 7:00 a.m. in Las Vegas. I have just returned from a night of unfettered revelry and I'm in the shower trying to cleanse the remnants of the previous evening from my self. It takes a cocktail of mouthwash and Visine on the rocks made up of multiple milligrams of vitamins B and C to get me started and a steady diet of breath mints and bottled water will keep me going through the day.

The only other thing that keeps me going on a day like this is the anticipation. And this anticipation could only be reserved for the promise of something entirely new and innovative. Am I talking about paradigm shifts or even bold evolutionary steps here? Not necessarily. More often these "innovations" I seek do not reinvent the wheel as much as they steal a fresh design and knock off shameless copies. Did I say that out loud?

Excuse me for a moment while I stifle the urge to spew my innovation-versus-imitation rant. OK, I'm better now. I'm ready to reassume my role as one of the countless cogs contained within the Primedia juggernaut. Where was I? Oh, yes, lost wages.

The Specialty Equipment Market Association not only makes up the SEMA acronym but also produces this annual soire in Sin City, which happens to be the largest automotive aftermarket show in the world. In between the evenings filled with lasciviousness and debauchery, my days were spent roaming the show floor on a quixotic quest for innovation. But what is innovation as it applies to this industry? And more importantly, where can I find a portly little Sancho Panza of my own to carry my brochure-laden pack next year?

Many of the products we found at the show are innovative in one way or another as is the hardware featured in this month's story on the challenge of creating performance-enhancing smog-legal parts. But the sophistication or technological superiority of a certain product doesn't mean a thing without proper tuning.

Before you get too excited about that self-adjusting, vibration-free, cold-forged, ball-bearing whachamacallit, take a moment to think about how it will work with your setup. Of course, a product must be able to make power in order for a tuner to extract the most gains from it. But at the same time, it takes a good tuner to find this power.

This is not to disavow the ingenuity built into these products. I found the innovation that I sought scattered throughout the aisles of the show. But what's equally impressive to me is the work of a small group of tuners relentlessly testing the limits of these products in search of more power.

Parts are parts. The only thing that matters is what you do with them.-John Naderisstreet@primedia.com