Very interesting set of comments, only one from someone who was actually affected I think. My son and I were affected by this and I am gutted for my Son as he drove brilliantly all weekend only to be disqualified through no fault of his own.
Fact is the rule was introduced, it is written in the gold book which I said I had read when I signed him on. I had in fact not read it so was unaware that the air box rubbers had the wrong stamp. So I have to accept that, as per the class regulations, we were racing an illegal Kart.
As to the scrutineers they were doing their job, it is not their fault that I did not read the rules. As to why check the airboxes and the sidepods, why not?, the new rule was introduced Jan 1 and this was the Feb meeting so everyone should have had plenty of time to check and update their air boxes. For sidepods it was a wet meeting and that is the time to check, sidepods is a safety thing and I want racing to be as safe as possible.
For the air box I have very closely examined the Rotax part with the aprillia and they are slightly different. I cant comment as to whether one has a performance advantage over they other as I don't know, certainly in the wet when engine power is somewhat irrelevant there would not have been any advantage but that does not change the fact that it was not as per the regulation.
I happen to think that all of the officials at Kimbolton do a first class job, they do everything they can to make the racing as enjoyable as they can for the members and visitors to the club and this is borne out from the fact that well over 200+ people now regularly attend. I believe that they felt really bad about the DSQ's but from my perspective I actually want them to enforce the rules, as soon as they don't then this encourages cheating which is not good for our sport.
Next step, get a new air box, put this down to racing experience and get on with the next race.
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