Robby Gordon and Jesse Jones Baja 500 disqualification

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Robby Gordon disqualified for two incidents of improper finish line conduct, Jesse Jones, last years Trophy Truck winner, disqualified “for race vehicle backwards course return to pit”.SCORE Intl. published as of today, June 18 2011 “updated Official Class Results” which have some “interesting’ changes compared with the “Official Finishers” results posted after the 2011 Baja 500 race. Also penalized and kicked back to 9th: Rob MacCachren for pitting on traffic lane of highway. The disqualification for Jesse Jones puts Justin Davis solidly in the overall points lead, Andy McMillin moves up to 2nd in Trophy Truck 2011 Baja 500 results.

Is this good or bad for the off-road sport?? We at Puro Off-Road think both. The disqualification of Gordon can be justified that a) the first part of the “act” was plain and simple not a driver controlled move but RG just came in “to hot”, he even hit the barrier as one can see in the video. The off-road sport cannot afford another accident, no matter if in the US or Mexico, no matter how much the fans like that. Let get somebody hurt and you would see how fast this changes. Even a multi-million dollar operation as SCORE Intl. would have a hard time buying it’s way out of that. Have it maybe happen during the following “donut showboating” would make things worse. It would not be a “racing accident” anymore….. This is not NASCAR with distance, solid fencing and barriers that protect the spectators. Looking at it that way DQ justified.
Negative and giving SCORE a poor rating are the facts that all the donuts stuff could been avoided with a clear announcement that this is not a allowed action. After all there been a few of them “shows” during the last races and the officials did not shown amusements about it….
Real bad is that a disqualification is made 2 (TWO) WEEKS after the race. After all at least the Robby Gordon incident was right there at the finishline. The Rob MacCachren pitting on traffic lane YouTube video is out there since June 9th 2011 and the Jesse Jones backward drive should been easy to detect right after the race when study the tracking devises. This just shows a certain degree of unprofessional handling that has in the 2011 high-tech world no space anymore! Not 2 weeks after the race!! That is lame SCORE.

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