BBMX Response to Jason Thomas' Disqualification

This is a personal note to all team sponsors and team fans on the recent AMA Press Release that went out late this afternoon disqualifying DNA Energy Drink / BTOSports / BBMX team rider Jason Thomas for use of illegal race fuel at Anaheim 2. Neither Jason Thomas, nor the BBMX race team, purposely cheated or used illegal race fuel. The team is using VP's Pro 4 unleaded racing fuel, which is completely legal and approved by AMA Pro Racing. This is the same exact fuel that most all top race teams use and have used in the past since Leaded fuel became illegal in AMA Professional Racing. Factory Yamaha rider Josh Hill and MDK Motorsports team rider Nick Wey, have also been disqualified for the same reasons.

Jason Thomas's race bike was fuel tested at both the Phoenix and Anaheim 2 rounds. The same exact fuel was used both weekends and came from the same brand new 15-gallon drum that stays on the team semi. Jason was only disqualified from the Anaheim 2 race. Neither Jason or the team has been notified by AMA Pro Racing's series manager, Steve Whitelock, if the fuel tested at Phoenix was legal or illegal at the time of this post.

The urgent purpose of this news release is to assure all that the team, nor JT, were cheating. We have still not been notified of anything more than our fuel was over the Specific Gravity limit, both Lead and Oxygen content were both fine. This now marks the 4th time in the past 3 seasons that AMA Pro has had fuel issues with riders and each time they are increments that don't even make a performance difference. It makes both the team and team affiliates look like we are bending the rules when we are not. We are actually doing our best to follow them by using AMA Pro approved race fuel.

We apologize to all team sponsors for this inconvenience and promise we will be working as hard as we can to get the issue resolved.

Sincerely,
Forrest Butler
BBMX Team Owner