One week after wrongly disqualifying Chris Normand from third place in the Pro Thunder race at VIR for violating a rule which no longer exists, and five days after exonerating and reinstating Normand, AMA officials had still not corrected news posts on the AMA website nor issued a press release announcing Normand’s reinstatement.
As a result, news stories on the AMA’s own website and on other sites still say that Normand was disqualified because his Suzuki SV650 weighed less than 380 pounds, a minimum weight requirement which was actually eliminated from Pro Thunder rules last February.
Normand was reinstated after Roadracingworld.com posted a news story–complete with a link to the February 9 competition bulletin on the AMA website, which announced that the minimum weight rule had been eliminated for four-stroke single-cylinder machines and non-desmodromic, liquid-cooled, twin-cylinder machines displacing 600cc – 850cc.
Within two days, the official results of the event were changed on the AMA Pro Racing website to reinstate Normand’s third-place finish. But as of October 7, AMA Pro Racing had not issued a correction for a race report penned by AMA Pro Racing Media Relations Contractor Larry
Lawrence entitled “Montano’s Pro Thunder Lead Grows With VIR Win”, which still says that Normand was disqualified for being underweight. That story can still be found on the AMA Pro Racing website as well as on www.speedvision.com.
Normand’s name was also missing from results shown on Speedvision’s “Bike Week” show, aired two days after the race.
One Week Later, AMA Website, Press Releases Still Report Normand DQ Despite His Exoneration And Reinstatement
One Week Later, AMA Website, Press Releases Still Report Normand DQ Despite His Exoneration And Reinstatement
© 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.