Hi Keith,
Here is some past Dry Lakes history. Is this what you are looking for?
In the early 1980's I bought an old drag car that happened to be a rear
engined roadster. I contacted Dan Warner and ask Dan if I can run this car at
El Mirage. He politely tells me that rear engined roadsters were outlawed, and
could no longer run. So my next question to Dan is can I run it as a lakester?
Dan again tells me that in the rule book it states "all vehicles will run only
in the lowest primary class for which they are legal", and that since the car
was a roadster it would not be legal to run in the lakester class. I agreed
with Dan and did not purse this again.
Fast forward, 1986. I think it was the September meet of that year, and I am
walking around to see what cars are there. I spot this modified roadster that
has a rear wing on it. As I am saying to myself this is not legal in modified
roadster class, I look on the side of the car and see it is running as a
lakester. I am dumbfounded. I am saying to myself this cannot be real. So I
decided to wait and see how the car ran before saying anything to an official.
Well the car goes out and breaks the existing record as a lakester according to
the announcer. I head off to find Dan Warner to ask him what is going on? I
find Dan and explain what I have seen. We walk over to the car owner and Dan
tells him the car is not legal to run as a lakester. The car owner gets furious
and starts jumping up and down, saying he had contacted all of the board
members including the President Jim Lattin, and they saw nothing wrong with
running the roadster as a lakester.
Needless to say there was much discussion over this fiasco. To make a long
story short, the outcome of this was that the SCTA board voted to let the
record stand. And then told the owner the car could never be run again as a
lakester.
You can draw your own conclusions.
|