Posts
81
Joined
11/11/2019
Location
Pensacola, FL
US
Edited Date/Time
7/23/2022 5:28pm
Watching the vurb millcreek video and saw webb got protested. Just made me laugh and think back to some 50 parents getting a little hot back in the day. Curious if anyone had entertaining stories to share!
He protested the protest, but got nowhere. It all turned out for the best anyway, because he got a write up in Moto Playground over the debacle and they put him in a pretty good light, as I remember.
https://www.vitalmx.com/forums/Old-School-Moto,22/Marty-Tripes-claimed-…
Scared Honda enough that Marty Smith only got to ride his 76 RC125 at Mid-Ohio for the GP because the FIM didn't have a claiming rule at the time.
All of the factories were walking around with envelopes of cash to make counter claims. It was a strategy that worked...until Roeder hit on his claim. And that might have cost Tripes his best shot at a National Championship.
The Shop
Rather than have the strip-down they just loaded up and went home!
Malcolm or James Stewart got DQ'd at Lorettas on a PW50 one year, forget which one. I think oil injection was bypassed.
The protest was rather tainted as only the first 5 were eligible to be protested but 4th place rider Andy Roberton on his Montesa had previously ridden a 250cc GP so wasn’t eligible for 500cc points. Bob’s mechanic John Baynham got in a wrestling match over the bike with Whitlock, ended up chinning him, snatched bike back and went and locked it away in back of CCM Team van, so it never did get measured.
Whole incident was celebrated in my painting “Rule Britannia “ as CCM riders Bob Wright and John Banks led the world. This is the marker visual of painting.
Pit Row
This protest led to Chatfield claiming Mike's factory Honda supermini a week later at Loretta's.
Some kid gets beaten by clearly better riders, and Dad protests because one of the kids who beat him forgot about a piece of tape on a lever.
Like that made any difference.
But, relative to the right kind of protest, albeit in the car racing vein, the most famous story I have heard over the last decade came from the SCCA Run-offs in 2014. That year, the top nine Spec Miata's in the final were blanket protested for an illegal engine mod, and all of the top six cars (and others) were DQ'd. In the end, the guy who finished seventh became the National Champion. Even crazier, the reason for the DQ was an "illegal" head mod, but the illegal mod was only created when the heads were legally cleaned up. Needless to say, the rules were heavily debated and changed for the next year.
For those who don't know, Spec Miata is like the PW or 65 stock classes but for grown adults with big bank accounts. At the highest levels, every and any tweak that can be added to gain an advantage, regardless of the cost, will be employed. While we all like to bemoan the over-the-top costs associated with the Mod'd classes, the ends guys go to to complete in Spec and Stock classes can be pretty crazy, too, and it all provides tons of fodder for those whose aim in life seems to be protesting the actions of the neighbor who beat them.
Post a reply to: Any good protest stories?