Indianapolis, Indiana – FIRST Team Principal Adam Blocker has responded to comments made by North Star team principal Nick Forrest after the FIRST and North Star drivers had multiple run-ins at FIRST’s home race at the Brickyard. Forrest labelled the FIRST drivers’ actions as ‘appalling’ and accused Zozulya of blocking Beckenbauer unfairly and Hutchinson of deliberately colliding with Judson Sikes.
In Blocker’s post-race interview with the press, he responded to these comments by saying ‘It’s racing. Maybe Nick [Forrest] doesn’t know about it, but our drivers are actually allowed to race against his drivers, they aren’t simply going to move over. The fact that he is appalled by what happened is beyond me. Zozulya was perfectly entitled to defend his position from Beckenbauer in the way he did. He was defending in the same way against other drivers, but the other drivers had enough skill to get past. Beckenbauer apparently didn’t. I applaud Oleksandr for not backing down and fighting for his position. He did a good job to make his Soft tire strategy work and bring home some points for us at our home V-Prix. Hutchinson was at fault for the incident with Sikes. However, to assert that he did anything intentional is absolutely preposterous. He barely tapped him and then they got hooked together, as we’ve seen many times in this series, and couldn’t get apart. They eventually both carried on without much damage to either of their races. This kind of stuff happens in racing. Neither one of their races was severely compromised by this so I don’t see what all of the fuss is about, and Hutchinson certainly doesn't deserve a penalty for such a minor incident. If the stewards are going to penalize that, they have to penalize about seven drivers every race.’ Forrest went on to criticize other actions of the FIRST team throughout the season, accusing them of cheating by racing Zozulya in both FV2 and FV, and pointing to Zozulya’s disqualification in Germany. Blocker replied to these comments by saying ‘In regards to the Zozulya stuff, it’s not our team’s fault that there was a loop hole in the rules. That’s what competition is all about, finding loop holes and exploiting them. We did that. I see no problems with that. I’m sure North Star would have done the same if they were in our position.’ Blocker went on to dismiss the implication that FIRST are a ‘dirty’ team: ‘He is just frustrated that we beat them last season and might do the same this season. I think that really gets under his skin. Our team and drivers have never been sanctioned for any illegal actions, on the track or off the track, so he has no evidence to support that we are a dirty team. That’s just bullshit.’ On his team’s chances to hold of North Star in the last two races: ‘We better hold them off now. It’s personal. We will race them as hard as possible in the last two races. If they don’t like it, that’s too bad. They can bitch and moan all they want. I don’t give a fuck.’
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