SEAL VIOLATION - FAMILY BANNED FROM MMRA

In the MMRA Penalties/Fines section of the MMRA minicup rulebook, the most serious penalty is reserved for violations involving the MMRA Approved sealed engine program.  The policy is copied below:

"Cheating with Engine Seals – Any competitor and/or their immediate family who attempts to copy, mock, or circumvent MMRA approved engine seals will be banned from further MMRA competition for life."

Unfortunately, MMRA has been forced to apply this penalty for the first time.  At the end of August, it was brought to our attention that some duplicate MMRA seals had been obtained by Marvin Mitchell from the manufacturer of the seals.  The manufacturer has cooperated fully with MMRA, and we have full documentation of exactly how many seals, and what serial numbers Mr. Mitchell purchased.  Although Mr. Mitchell did not use any of the seals, nor did any other racer, our policy was violated, and Marvin Mitchell and his immediate family are banned from MMRA for life.

Obviously this weakness in the program needed to be addressed, and the manufacturer has increased security to avoid any further mistakes.  Here is the text of a letter from the company to MMRA:

Pete,
     We regret to acknowledge that we were deceived into producing seals with your MMRA logo for another party.
     We have taken the following steps to insure this cannot occur again:

1) The MMRA logo stamp is stored in our vault in a tamper-evident envelope.  Instructions on the envelope require a PIN # to authorize opening. 

2) All potential customers for our cup seals must provide a written purchase order and will be informed that all orders are logged to produce an evidence trail  for all parties security.
 

The serial numbers obtained by Mr. Mitchell must now be retired by MMRA.  Racers who have engines sealed with these numbers will be contacted by MMRA.  They will have the option to send their engine to EES at MMRA expense for recertification and re-sealing with new, unduplicated seals.

The MMRA Approved Sealed engine program and policy remains unchanged and in full force and effect.  This violation was limited to one family and did not involve other racers, EES, or MMRA officials.  That family will no longer participate in MMRA. 

In the future, if anyone should ever offer counterfeit, duplicate, or copied engine seals to you, avoid them.  Anyone using, or simply in possession of, such seals will similarly be banned from MMRA for life along with their immediate family.  MMRA will not tolerate any attempts to undermine the integrity of this program.

Update 10/9/05 - The seals were first ordered on July 15, 2005 so the MMRA Competition Committee has voted to apply the ban as of that date.  All points earned by the Mitchell family since July 15, 2005 have been deleted.