Another night at Flamboro.

Another frustrating example of inconsistent officiating.

David Elliott and the #37 Pennzoil Impala made what was to be their first of three scheduled trips to Flamboro Speedway this past weekend for the first race in the Grisdale Triple Crown Series.

The team had made a number of chances to the car since its last race at Delaware , including the installation of a new crate engine. The first practice session was cut short due to a slipping clutch, but the team made repairs and worked on dialing in a very loose car during the next two sessions.

The Pennzoil #37 had the pole for his first heat race and immediately took the lead over the #03 of Shane Maginnis. David knew Shane’s reputation for rough driving, but managed to stay in front for the first seven laps, despite repeated contact from the #03. Maginnis finally hit David hard enough to get him out of shape and passed him on the inside. David settled for a 2nd place finish.

The second heat saw David starting on the inside of row three. Going into turn one, the inside row moved well and David followed Richard Holmes into the corner. Maginnis’ spotter apparently didn’t notice the bright yellow #37 on the inside as the #03 made a hard left into the side of David’s car while trying to get under the #50 of Dave Baker.

David managed to keep control of the car and came out of turn two in front of the #03. In a carbon copy of the previous heat, Maginnis began hitting David in every corner. Again, he hit the #37 hard enough to get it sideways off of turn 4, so David eased off the throttle and let Maginnis pass on the inside. In the middle of turns one and two, David decided to give Maginnis a taste of his own medicine and rammed the rear of the #03, spinning him out.

“I knew the type of driver Maginnis has been this year. He dumped Steve Laking out of 3^rd place last weekend and has been hitting every driver on the track this year,” David said. “I wanted to send him the message that he couldn’t push me around.”

The officials told the drivers in their pre-race meeting that if you spun another car, you would be sent to the rear of the field, so David knew he would be restarting at the back of the pack. The green flag flew and David clawed his way back up to 2^nd place by race end.

Following the race there were rumours that the #37 had been disqualified, but when David asked the officials in the tower, he was told that he finished 2^nd. Ten minutes later, he was called to the tower and informed that he was indeed disqualified. In their “infinite wisdom”, track officials determined that when the #03 turned left into David on the opening lap, the contact had been David’s fault. By retaliating and dumping Maginnis later in the race led to being disqualified for rough driving.

When track official, Don Cox was asked why David was disqualified for something that the #03 had done a week earlier with no penalty, his reply was “That was last week. Lets worry about Today”

An infuriated David loaded up the car and planned to leave right away. After a discussion with his team, he decided to run one lap in the feature to collect last place money. He turned the first lap, then pulled off the track rather than risk wrecking a top-5 points car at Delaware .

It was this inconsistent and biased officiating that led to David running at Delaware this season rather than at Flamboro. And, this latest display of poor officiating has made the team decide to skip the remaining two Grisdale races.

“We’ve run our last race at Flamboro,” said David.

The #37 is looking forward to returning to Delaware Speedway this Friday night. Racing begins at 8 p.m.