Anybody surprised by the sudden staff change at the AMA last fall, our Vital friends might be on to something.
"There was a pretty crazy story from last year's PW class involving an AMA official and a mom. Apparently the kid didn't qualify but was given preferential treatment since mom was taking one for the team. Obviously the parents of the kid who earned a spot but were shafted made a big deal about it, and the official is no longer employed by the AMA or MX Sports."
And, as Paul Harvey once said, "Here is the rest of the story" (from vitalmx):
I'm probably going to regret this, but this is not at all what happened. My memory is 99% on this and here is how it happened.
At the Southwest Regional they take the top 3 kids in the PW50 class to Lorettas. One of the kids who finished in the top three was protested for illegal suspension. The suspension was deemed illegal but the rider produced a letter from an AMA employee that said it was OK to do what he did to the suspension. So now there is a problem. It was not fair to the fourth place rider to be beaten by a bike with illegal parts, but it was also not fair to DQ the kid with the suspension because he was misled by the AMA employee who did not understand his question and replied improperly.
Since there is not a full gate at LLs in the PW class a compromise was reached and both were allowed to race. What probably should have happened was the kid should have been DQed for illegal suspension and then appealed the DQ. That would have left a paper trail. Instead, when they got to LLs they just put her in the class.
The problem was twofold. One, she was listed as the 4th alternate, and two her mom was dating an AMA employee. When she was added to the class everyone thought they jumped over the first three alternates because of her moms relationship when in actuality it was because of what happened in the regional. Had the regional been handled properly, she would have been in third and a qualifying position.
I think after how bad it looked, even though non of the rumors were true, MX Sports just let all of the alternates who were there race.
Finally, think about this. Even if an AMA employee asked MX Sports to allow their girlfriends kid to hop over a bunch of kids in the alternate line, there is ZERO chance MX Sports would say yes to that. Every result from every race is online. Even if MX Sports wanted to, which I could never fathom, no chance they could possibly get away with it.
It is a way better story that a mom slept her kids way to the gate at LLs, just not what happened