After last night's bombshell -- Ricky Carmichael docked 25 championship
points for being over the legal limit of lead in the fuel -- TFS is
reporting that the Makita Suzuki rider plans on appealing the ruling,
as well as sticking by his team. According to sources within the team,
the item over limit was nothing performance enhancing, just a tiny
amount of lead. That's same thing that happened for Chad Reed near the
end of the 2004 AMA Championship run, and James Stewart and Michael
Byrne last year. Also, the oxygen level was on the low side. And while
the AMA Pro says they don't hear appeals on these, American
Suzuki is expected to argue that appeals are options per the rulebook.
Also, Suzuki does have their own samples from San Diego themselves, and
these were sealed by the AMA.
As for the 13-time champion Carmichael, he plans on having an
early Saturday morning meeting in the Makita Suzuki pits in Atlanta and
the message to the team will be this: No one did anything wrong, we
will get through this.
Stay tuned to Racer X Online for more on this breaking story
