KINGSPORT, TN :: Daniel Pope has been stripped of his win from Friday night’s race at Kingsport Speedway after the trailing arms on his Late Model were discovered to be too light. As a result of the disqualification, Lee Tissot inherits the victory, his second of the 2013 season.
The discovery came after a protest was lodged by Chad Finchum’s team over the rear end housing and the trailing arms. Finchum was disqualified last week after his engine was protested by Zeke Shell.
“I found out this morning that the trailing arms lined up .112 instead of the mandatory .117,” Pope said. “It was five thousandths too thin. It’s a total vacancy of the win just like Finchum last week.”
Pope called the deal an oversight on his part and said it was not deliberate, stating that the rules were different in 2010 when his chassis was built.
“We’ll put two trailing arms in it and try to come back and win next week,” Pope explained. “We just got caught, we did research on it, when the car was built in 2010, the rules only required eight inch steel and then, in 2011, they made a rules amendment and we missed it. It was an oversight on our part. I haven’t modified the car, I just didn’t read the rules close enough. We talked to our chassis builder – there was no rule against .112 trailing arms in 2010. I assumed everything was right. We’ve had the trailing arms checked two or three times at other tracks and nobody’s ever told me anything about them being illegal.”
Pope had dominated Friday night’s race, which went caution free from start to finish. He had inherited the points lead entering Friday night’s race after Chad Finchum was disqualified the week before. He looked to have extended his points lead on Friday but, with the disqualification, he will vacate those points. Zeke Shell is now tied with Kres VanDyke atop the point standings with the tie-breaker going to Shell by virtue of his three wins on the season.
