I was moved to last place in class for non compliance. This was a pretty tough pill since I won the ITR race but after meeting with the stewards it's pretty black and white. At impound everybody was to open their hoods - I understand that Topeka asked for air intakes be inspected. My intake box has a stock snorkle. The guy I bought my car from was a injection molder and created a bigger snorkle to the front air vent in the car - creates a great Ram air effect. I've shown this to many folks remarking that here is a great, legal mod for the 968. Well, not legal.

When the car was inspected it was questioned and I said, "go look at Brian's 968 parked over there by impound - my snorkle is in the stock location getting air from the stock location." Well, that provided a perfect comparison point. After inspecting Brian's car it was determined that the small grill that goes over the air vent was missing on my car - no question that is non compliant. The second non compliant point was after very, very careful inspection it was determined that the metal area in front of the airbox was modified to allow the snorkle. Now I owned both those cars and had them both in my garage side by side - I didn't notice but no excuse - can't have modified body work - so that was the second non compliant item. This work was so good several folks in impound said no way that was modified, its factory. Well, it was different on Brian's car so no doubting that.

So while I was totally disappointed I hope I comported myself with class like a man, licked my wounds and will come back with my issues corrected. I received clear instruction on what to do. A point I will add - the big snorkle was legal - but since I have to replace some bodywork it won't be as effective. I plan on working with tech to make sure what I do to correct this is 100% to the satisfaction of tech.

Kudos to the stewards. These folks managed the process very professionally. I was treated with dignity and respect and communication to me was very clear and direct. I clearly understood what was happening, why and unfortunately the outcome.

This was a roller coster weekend. T&S had no times for me after qualifying. Then my times were found and I was third overall and on ITR pole. Won the race, did the victory lap and went downhill from there...

Looking forward to racing at LRP - I will be there with vengeance.....

PS - I did the STU race. I was so depressed I was going to skip it but my buddies encouraged me. Didn't fill up the tank - got DQ'd for being 8 pounds light. It was icing on the cake but I didn't really care - I was so bummed my heart wasn't into it. There were 8 cars in the whole race and only 4 STU cars. I was against Maynards Grand AM BMW and Parlato's World Challenge BMW - no chance. Gorrarian raced his Miata but pulled off to get into another car for the next session.