This process had been in place for a whole bunch of years. Every once in a while it rears its ugly head, and there is a lot of talk, but nothing is changed.
The witch hunt syndrome was the prime reason for it's being put in place, but the side effects seem to cause more frustration.
I can give you another case where a non-complying car was allow a class win at the Runoffs, when very obviously, as seen by the naked eye, the modification was on display in post race impound for several hours and nothing was done to question the non-complying parts.
A friend of the court protest was made by the offending competitor. This is the process where if a competitor believes he has found a hidden hole in the rules, and has applied this new found speed secret to his/her car and wants the courts to determine if his/her interpretation of the written rues are in their favor. The process is kept secret and the results of he self imposed protest are not made public. This holds true if after getting a favorable or unfavorable decision by the first court , decides to file an appeal with the COA. The COA decision is also kept private and not publicized.
In this case the modification was the use of alternate, read AN, flexible brake lines on a Showroom Stock classed car. The protest, written in a clever manner, listed only part of a sentence, stopping at a comma, and not including the rest of the sentence.
The COA denied the protest, deciding that the rule as written, prohibited the use of an alternate material brake line. So, no one new of the decision, and the protestor decided to retain the offending parts for the race and take their chances.
In impound the front wheels were removed and the brake lines were in plane sight, and remained so for several hours. Either tech did not pick up on this modification, or because of the "list", did not take any action, or the other competitors didn't see or overlooked the modification. The end result was a win, win for the competitor. The Competiton Board (CRB) was not make aware of the protest/appeal, as per the rules, and did nothing to change or clarify the rule for the following year.
Compounding this problem is the possibility of a denial of a protest by SOM, because the protestor had plenty of time to file the protest before the imposed time limit on mechanical protests. What is not in consideration is the plain and simple fact that the protestor my have never had to opportunity to see the modification prior to the actual race, and only observed the modification when he/she was in post race impound, which is/was tightly controlled, with regards to access by most parties. Part of the controlled access to post race impound, is to prevent parties who may or may not have direct involvement in the race, and are not a part of the post race impound, from coming in and cherry picking an impounded car. The "Hey tech, look at this" syndrome.
On the underbody placement of a continuation of the floorboards, AKA bellypan, to enclose the rear axle, this was declared non-compliant back in the early 90's on Jeff Lane's midget, when it was referred to the CS/SOM by the tech crew at the runoffs. This was before the Witch Hunt rule. The then Chairman of the CB declared that, "Deli Trays" belonged on tables, holding the officials shrimp, not under cars.
