On Sunday, June 5, 2004 there was a small conflict between Jason Luburgh and the ATVA officials at Casey, Illinois. When Jason arrived on Friday he did not sign up for the pro class. He did however sign in at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday June 4th. No pro qualifiers were to be ran this weekend because only 20 riders were on the list. Apparently the officials made the decision while looking at Friday’s sign up sheet because when the first pro moto rolled around there where 21 riders and no spot for Jason at the gate. A decision was made by the trackside ref that Jason would not be racing that day. Needless to say tempers were flaring.

Jason was setting at eighth in points at the time. The top ten riders do not have to qualify, they are guaranteed a spot on the line. Also according to our information, pro riders have until Sunday morning to sign in. This means that Jason was well ahead of schedule with his Saturday sign in. We are only assuming that the decision made against Jason seemed the simplest solution to the officials at the time. However, rules are rules and in our eyes it looks like the mistake was made by the ATVA, not Jason. In such a situation riders are allowed a protest and Jason did. Just before press time we learned that Jason’s protest was turned down. We have not received any information as to why, but it is rather shocking.

Now let’s dig deeper. What bothers us more than the fact that Jason lost all the possible points from this race because of someone’s negligence is the fact that tempers got out of hand by ATVA officials. Things were said that shouldn’t have been and it was definitely not a cool situation. If this is a professional sport, lets be professionals. Get the paper work right, make the right decision when a problem arises and keep the attitude to minimum. We’ve seen this attitude before this season and we don’t want to see it again. This isn’t baseball, no one should be thrown out and no voices should be raised.

- from the Editor