KNOCK IT OFF; WHEN IT COMES TO WHEELS, IMITATION IS THE MOST SINCERE FORM OF MARKETING.

Byline: RICHARD S. CHANG

"If we go to the wheel section, I can probably point out 16 companies that are knocking off our products,'' Eddie Lee says matter-of-factly.

Lee, the motorsports manager for Mackin Industries, the United States distributor of Rays Engineering wheels, was doing double duty as booth security at last month's Specialty Equipment Market Association show in Las Vegas.

"We have a general policy that people are not allowed to take pictures of our products,'' Lee explains. "I've kicked several people out of the booth already.''

Shows like SEMA are fertile ground for product espionage. And no market is more fiercely scouted than the wheel market, where "knockoffs'' are talked about so much you would think they were the name of an actual brand.

For Lee, it's a part of life. Rays Engineering's Volk Racing brand has been knocked off (replicated with inferior materials and processes) probably more than any other company in the world. Most of the time, the knockoff companies are Chinese, and can supply the wheels faster and at a cheaper price.

"We've seen wheels knocked off in literally 72 hours,'' says Douglas Adler, U.S. competition director for Impul, a Japanese performance parts manufacturer that has just begun exporting its wheels to America.