Looking for some feedback.

Here is the skinny. Race Team finishes the World Championships in second place and protested the first place boat due to illegal equipment. Chief Referee is presented a protest in writing within an hour after race completion (according to the organizations rule book) and disqualifies the first place boat due to the infraction. The win goes to the second place team, team interviewed by the media although not awarded the trophy at the awards banquet and is told protest is still under review. Protesting Team notified 5 days later that the protest will not hold with this explanation: Protested team ran previous years with the same set up and that there was a misprint in the rule book for the year in question (in essence the rule book was wrong??). Protested boat ran 0 races during the regular season and only participated in the Worlds, Protesting boat ran the entire season. Chief Referee contacted the Protesting Team a month later with disgust with the overruling made by the Organizations President and quits the Organization.


How would you feel about this and what would you do?


Thanks

Ok how many people could name last year's World's winner anyway? I couldn't tell you who won the last Daytona 500 either. See how unimportant it is?

Come back this year, look at the competitor's boat and see if the illegal equipment is still there, protest the issue BEFORE the race and then go race. I'd bet if you win this year you wouldn't even remember last year.

Thanks Jupiter. Your input is noted and appreciated! Stay tuned to this thread to get all of the story, which makes for an interesting story brother. Would like to see more points from others!

no one wins these tech protest games i say tech them before then race then beat the hell out of them on the water unless they have an 100 pound nitrous bottle theres most often no gain or advantage

multiple thoughts..

1. A W/C is the last race of the year, series ran all year knowing there was an issue with the rulebook and made no attempt to correct??
2. did you know about this before the race or find out afterwards?? If you knew before the race and raised no issue, its on you....
3. given the history of the various orgs, nobody ever accused an offshore race org of playing fair.

Thanks for your input Boost! It is appreciated. What we are looking for is what you would do if this happened to you. You followed the rules all season and the last most important race you are told there was a mistake in the rule book and the Team that had illegal equipment won and the equipment was a major competitive advantage and it was determined 5 days after the race was completed!!

What would happen in any other race organizations that are not on the take. They would disqualify them if they had illegal equipment or penalize them points for a year long race schedule. Not knowing what they had the equipment or lack there of could make a significant difference. Also not opined on is the lack of racing during the season takes away from the sport that needs teams participating. The ones that do are I believe at a disadvantage with wear and tear on their equipment which can supersede the chemistry of racing together all year. Many of these one race wonders have raced together in the past so advantage of the year together is not that important. Having to race every event and keep the boat in too too shape is a disadvantage in my opinion. So yes I would think the reason we have rules is to keep things competitive and you need to adhere to it completely or it becomes very weak. Just look at our cities with lack of upholding the laws to see the negative effect 😂. I can certainly understand your frustration but know you raced the right way and come out swinging next year

IMHO, as soon as the rule book is released for the year, that is the perimeters that your are racing under and all previous versions of yearly rules are void.

Misprint or not, once the race started, what is in print is the rules for the race if there was no amendments put forward and accepted prior to race day .... as the OP wrote the circumstances, the organization let down all the racers

(Never did understand how you can only run the 3 final races and be called the "world champion" when racing was underway all season long all across the country)

If they were in fact competing with equipment that was permitted by the misprinted rule book, then they were doing nothing wrong. I've been on both sides of this in the stock car industry, and the best tool for technical inspection we have, that nobody can argue with is the printed rule book. If it was amended throughout the season with a printed technical notification sent to all registered teams, then they should have complied.

We attended many races as a racer & spectator after every race some team marching around crying foul. Did it happen good chance can you change results no!