THOMPSON – A week ago Limited Sportsman division driver Bill McNeil was celebrating in victory lane at Thompson International Speedway.
Thursday his car was packed away in his hauler before the start of heat races at the track.
McNeil, of Preston, was thrown out for the night by track officials for using unapproved screw-in ball joints. McNeil had the parts on his car last week when he won the 20-lap Limited Sportsman feature.
“We had asked him last week to change that part before he came back,” said Josh Vanada, Director of Competition at Thompson. “He took no action towards changing it. As a result, unfortunately, we had to send him home.”
McNeil’s crew posted a sign on the back of his hauler in the pits at Thompson that read: “This place is a dump run by idiots!”
McNeil said the parts weren’t available in time to have the car changed over for Thursday.
“They’re telling us that we can’t run screw-in ball joints, but Johnson [Chassis] has no availability for press-in ball joints,” McNeil said. “You can’t find them. And it’s the same ball joint, same geometry, it just screws in instead of pressing in. So they told us to load up the car after we ran it last week.”
Vanada said the track offered McNeil two options beyond the rule approved ball joints, but McNeil chose not to take either option.
“There were two options that we talked with the chassis builder about,” Vanada said. “They were two options he had for that so there was definitely recourse. He could have run but he didn’t do what was asked.”
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