Has This happened to anyone ELse ???

[John Moore]

We just finished off competing in the LODRS Division 5 event at Heartland Park Topeka.. Kansas Aug.22 and 23 rd,2008. We arrivewd on Thursday afternoon and paid the additional fees to obtain a couple of time trials operated exclusively by the track. This was only a two day divisional event.

Friday we were given two time trial oppurtunities. The first one we made was after 4 P.M. On our next oppurtunity my driver had encountered a problem with the cable to the shifter inside the car,having a nut come loose and the need to tighten it before he could make a run. He did not enter the burn-out box and did not move forward into the water box. He shut off the car and got my attention. We pushed the car back out of the way for the other qualifiers to go through. The next pair of qualifiers ended up with one going over on his top causing a shut down of the track for clean-up. During this time we were able to secure the loose nut and fix our small malfunction before all cleanup was completed.

The staging lane guy told us he would get us back in after the next pair and called via radio to the Heartland Park Tower control to advise them of us going back in. There were at least 6 other Top Sportsman cars to make their qualifying pass when all the cleanup had been completed. DIvision 5 DIrector Rob Park called over the radio to advise the Heartland Park Crew that we were not getting our pass and we were done because of our backing up and shutting down. So, we only had the one pass that day , it rained out any qualifying passes for Saturday A.M. and we went right into eliminations Sat afternoon.

I find nothing in the rulebook that says we did anything wrong and for the time and the way the situation happened with the cleanup, the amount of cars left to complete the T/S qualifying round I do not see how we could have been such an interruption to the already tight schedule.

Later, I checked with the Division 5 Tech Diresctor about this unusual situation. He found a " 2007 POLICY " that explained the right of the EVENT DIRECTOR has in nullifying a run.

I say , if it is a POLICY , it ought to be in the rulebook and I especially feel this was a bad judgement call on the Event Director and way too tight of a call to just wipe out our qualifying run.

I'd like to see what the Sportsman Advisory Council thinks of this type of action and let us know if they agree with this situatioin.

The car is T/S 5219 - 88 Chevrolet Beretta -- Christopher John Moore was the driver.
I am the father and I was there with this entire process. This is our car.. Father/Son.

Please advise whether this is something that is normal and routine or NOT !

Thanks,