Stripping engines is or was a very contentious issue. I think it was the 1983 F1 TT ( Thirty odd years is a long time to remember),Tony Rutter finished 3rd on our 750cc F1 Ducati just behind Joey Dunlop and Roger Marshall on their factory Honda F1's. I cant even remember who the chief scrutineer was but he asked me to remove the carburettor and the front cylinder from the Ducati to be measured. After I had done this I was asked to remove the rear cylinder for that to be measured. Did they seem to think that the bore on the rear cylinder was larger than the bore on the front cylinder ! I asked why the two factory Honda's of Joey and Roger were not being striped and I was told that the Honda management had refused for them to be striped. I know that a lot of people were interested to see the Honda's striped, because at that time there was a lot of speculation that Honda were using a gear driven valve gear instead of the chain drive, the regulations stated that the drive to the valve gear must be the same as the model that was homoligated.

A little later there was a article written by Norrie White of MCN regarding the whole issue of scrutineering after a race. In that article it was stated that the entry form was signed for a particular race, so by singing the entry form you were agreeing to abide to the technical regulations, including the supplementary regulations and this would be verified by the scrutineers.

However, I did notice that at the TT this year engines were being striped and measured and checked against the homoligated models technical spec.