Racers at the AMA Superbike series round at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California found themselves confronted with the same seemingly arbitrary and inconsistent application of the course-cut rules that plagued last year’s event, and that left at least a couple of racers and their crews feeling like they were treated unfairly because of the way the rules were enforced. “We feel like we’ve been wronged,” said Evan Steel, tuner for Chris Peris, who was handed a ride-through penalty for a course cut on Saturday, then watched other riders in his Sunday race do the same thing and never get called in. The supplemental rules for the event, revised and finalized three days before riders took to the track in April, stated that “Riders who fail to negotiate a turn must proceed through a hay bale chicane, if available, and then safely blend back into traffic. Failure to proceed through a haybale chicane after missing a turn or cutting the track in an area where no haybale chicane is available will result in the rider being charged with a track cut “¦ any rider charged with a track cut during a race will be assessed a ride-through penalty even if no advantage was gained.” This is precisely what happened to Chris Peris on the Team ESP Suzuki GSX-R1000, who was competing in the Superbike and Superstock races that weekend. “In the Superbike race, on the second or third lap, Matt Lynn passed Chris,” Steel said. “It was close, but nothing wrong, and Chris missed the Turn One chicane. He sat up, let off, looked behind him and got back on behind Lynn.” Course officials assessed Peris a ride-through penalty that ultimately dropped him from 11th, where he was scored at the end of the second lap, to 18th, where he was scored at the end of the 4th lap. Ultimately, Peris dropped out of the race, credited with completing eight laps and 19th place. Not a complete disaster, Steel says. “Superstock is our main focus,” he added. So the team sat out the Superbike race on Sunday and focused on the Superstock race. In that event, Peris was 6th across the line at the end of the first lap, but got passed by Jason Pridmore by the end of lap two. Pridmore then did the exact same thing that Peris did the day before, blowing the entrance to Turn One and cutting the course, Steel says. “So Chris (Peris) stayed behind Pridmore the whole race. He didn’t pass because he thought Pridmore would be DQ’d,” Steel says. “There was no sense taking a chance on passing a guy who wasn’t going to be there at the end. There was actually a board with Pridmore’s number on it at the start-finish line, but it was never displayed to him.” But there was no penalty, and Pridmore was credited with 5th, less than two seconds in front of Peris at the end of the race. “I talked to the AMA, and they said there were too many conflicting stories, and there’s no proof that anyone ran off,” Steel says. “It makes it that much more frustrating that we were running only three-10ths off the leader’s pace.” Steel called AMA officials after the event was over, and he said he got a phone call from Dennis Rhee, AMA Senior Vice President of Racing, on Thursday, four days after the event. “They’re still looking into it, that’s what he said,” Steel said. Team members monitoring the AMA radio transmissions between corner workers and race officials say there was a considerable amount of discussion over who went off the track and whether they would be penalized. From what they said, it was anything but the cut-and-dried approach laid out in the supplemental regulations. “I talked to Keith Perry (Crew Chief for Team M4 EMGO Suzuki), who told me he overheard the race officials talking on the radio about what to do when (Aaron) Yates missed a corner, and someone finally said, ‘Well, we’ll just wait and see if anyone protests,'” Steel said. An e-mail to the AMA headquarters asking questions about the officiating at the event was answered by Peter terHorst, whose firm was recently tabbed to handle communications for the AMA and who promised to get back to Roadracing World with an answer. Several days later, in response to follow-up e-mails, he said that the AMA had “dropped the ball” in trying to answer Roadracing World’s questions and that Colin Fraser would call to answer questions. To date, Fraser has not called. “As you know we are in a transition process with DMG and Colin and his crew are working very hard to improve upon the AMA’s practices and bring more professionalism into the series,” terHorst wrote. Chris Ulrich, who last year was penalized for a course cut that he says he handled according to the rules, wasn’t taking any chances this year when he ran off the course in the Superstock event. “Last year, the points I lost between finishing 12th and where I was during that race cost me fifth in the Championship in the long run,” Ulrich says. “They didn’t penalize a few other guys that weekend, but they screwed with me. “Based on my experience from that situation, and given the fact that I was in contention for the Championship going into the Fontana round (this year), when I made the mistake on the restart and was forced to go wide through the second chicane, I made a conscious decision to go all the way through the haybales before I got back on the track and make sure it was very, very clear that I didn’t cut the course or make up any time. If I hadn’t done that, who knows, I might have caught sixth.” Ulrich lost six positions by threading through the haybales, dropping from 8th to 14th. “The thing that pisses me off is that the day before I watched Josh Hayes do the same thing, and he got no penalty. You know, you see Mladin go off the track, he got no penalty. But I know for a fact that I have to be squeaky clean or they’ll drop the hammer on me. I’m John Ulrich’s son, he’s the guy on their case when they screw up, and they can’t screw with him on the track, so they take it out on me. They always have.” (Racer Jeremy Toye said that he heard AMA Race Director Dan Argano complain during the Fontana weekend, ‘What, do I have to look up the Chris Ulrich clause?’ AMA officials did not respond to multiple e-mails from Roadracing World asking for clarification or an explanation as to what Argano meant. And witnesses say that when Chris Ulrich put the Roadracingworld.com Suzuki GSX-R1000 on the podium at Barber earlier this season, there were AMA officials closely overseeing the post-race teardown of his bike, while mechanics for the other two podium finishers were allowed to do their post-race teardowns without constant surveillance.) Perry says he was listening in on the radio during the race when course officials began calling in course cuts. “I heard when they called out 43 (Pridmore), and I can’t remember who the other rider was who missed one of the infield chicanes. It may have been Yates, but I don’t recall exactly who it was,” Perry says. “There was a lot of discussion about whether there was another rider involved and that’s why the 43 missed the turn, or whether it was just too much speed and he missed the curbing. Eventually, I did hear some chatter about ‘We’ll just wait and see if anyone says anything.’ “I went up to scoring to let them know that we knew the other riders had cut, then I left them to do what I assumed they would do. For everyone who did the same thing and the same spot, the same penalty would apply, I thought. From talking to the Peris crew, I know they felt that was not the case.” If the series is going to continue racing at Fontana, Perry says, it is critical that officials make sure that they make the same calls and apply the same penalty to everyone who makes the same mistakes. “Fontana has so much artificial curbing, so much artificial turns, it’s such a Mickey Mouse place if we’re going to have to deal with that, then the penalty has to be the same for every rider involved,” Perry says. “There has to be a set penalty that has to be applied in all cases at all times. I’m not sure that’s what’s happening here. I know what I heard on the radio.”