Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Following a new round of fines and points penalties related to illegal Supersport racebike modifications, AMA officials were not able to explain to reporters just what it now takes to get disqualified from an AMA National.

However, Roadracingworld.com has learned that racer John France was black-flagged out of his 250cc Grand Prix qualifying session at Pikes Peak and was threatened with immediate disqualification and expulsion from the premises.

France’s crime was using a slingshot to fire a paintball at a friend and missing, hitting a member of the TV production crew instead.

Hours after the paintball incident, AMA Pro Racing officials black-flagged France out of his qualifying session and threatened him with immediate disqualification and banishment from the racetrack.

Cooler heads prevailed and France was allowed to race, although he was told that he faces a fine of a yet-to-be-determined amount.

No official statement on the situation has been released by AMA Pro Racing.

Phone messages left Wednesday morning seeking comment from AMA Pro Racing’s Ron Barrick and Merrill Vanderslice had not been returned prior to post time.

France has declined comment.


This just in: Merrill Vanderslice returned the call, and what was said follows:

Roadracingworld.com: We understand there was some sort of incident with John France and a paint ball at Pikes Peak that nearly saw France disqualified and kicked out of the track. What happened as far as AMA Pro Racing taking action against France?

Merrill Vanderslice, AMA Pro Racing Director of Competition: “We got a radio call from (TV Producer) Chet Burks – I say ‘we,’ Ron Barrick did – that France had shot a paint ball in the paddock and hit one of the production TV camera men in the eye. You can imagine what we thought, that that certainly wasn’t a good situation. That sounds very unprofessional, sounds dangerous.

“At the time the radio called in, I believe 250 GP qualifying was going on. And Ron had John black-flagged, went and talked to him and said, ‘We heard this, and we’re disqualifying you and you need to pack your stuff and get off the premises.’

“After that Greg Esser came to Ron to kind of plead John’s case a bit, told him – again you really need to be talking to Ron, because all of this goes through him. I’m getting this myself second-hand. But Greg said that, you know, it was not malicious, they were playing around with someone else who was egging John on to shoot this thing, and he missed and hit the fence and it sprayed in this other guy’s eye.

“All of that doesn’t really matter much. The fact remains is he’s shooting paint balls with a slingshot in the paddock, hit somebody – somebody could have got hurt. It’s not something we expect professional racers to be doing in the paddock, as well. I mean, that’s a high school/junior high prank somebody does.

“So, Greg said that John certainly didn’t mean anything by it and all that, and he hoped that he (Barrick) would talk to John about it.

“Greg rides with John to the races. It was going to be a problem with Greg getting a ride home and that sort of thing, continuing rides in the future.

“So Ron had a word with John, and John said, apparently, it was a very stupid thing to do. John came to me and said the same thing. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. I was playing around. It was dumb, a very stupid thing to do. It won’t ever happen again.’

“I left it to Ron to decide from there. Ron decided to let John continue to race, that he was going to be watched, that a possible fine was going to be levied. I don’t know anything after that. I don’t even know if Ron’s had time to mess with it any more.”

Roadracingworld.com had tried to contact Barrick at his home office in Virginia Wednesday morning.

Vanderslice explained, “He’s on a plane to Italy right now. He’s a jury member on a World Superbike event this weekend. He will be back Monday night.”