Fortune Racing's Rex Riley and Nicole Woycick have been disqualified from future participation in NACRS, creating a huge shakeup in the complexion of the series.
During post-race inspection, a mysterious unidentified substance was found in the gas tanks of the #72 and #73 Dodge Challenger GTO cars. Further inspection determined that the substance was an octane booster, which is a banned performance enhancing additive that make more power than is allowed under NACRS GTO regulations.
"What we saw was disgraceful," NACRS Founder Maxine Slant declared at 8 o'clock the evening of the race after the third round of the season, through a conference call with drivers and teams.
"The levels of concentration found in the fuel leads the North American Cohost Racing Series organizers to believe that this could not have been a mistake. Our estimates show that potentially three bottles of retail fuel additives were found in the gasoline at post-race inspection. It may be looked over as a mistake if only a small amount was found, but the excessive amount of fuel additives found lead us to believe a competitive advantage was the intended effect of these fuel additives."
The drivers during this conference call showed frustration at the blatant cheating, but commended the NACRS board for finding the issue so quickly.
"It's ludicrous to see just how much more power the Fortune Racing cars had than the rest of us," said GTO driver Stryxnine Pulsatrix. "I don't think anybody on the grid was thinking anything different. I'm just glad the NACRS inspectors were able to find this before any of us spoke up about it. Fortune [Racing] has been especially litigant in the past, so none of us wanted to speak up about it lest we get sued to oblivion for just addressing the skepticism many of us had about the legitimacy of their race cars."
Rex Riley and Nicole Woycick have been removed from any championship tallies in the future, and will not be allowed to compete for the rest of the season and the season following.
Fortune Racing personnel did not respond to our questions at time of publication.
