Basically, they were struck by the technological surprise of a 4.0 Oz, (including A10-0T motor) 21 Ft. balsa stick truss structure rocket, and they reacted extremely poorly to it. They came up with a laundry list of excuses to DQ it, after the flight.
There is a rule against it now. :)
The problem was the wind that few competitors had prepared for. I saw people holding their rocket upright while it was being launched. That was bad! They called an end to that practice, in draconian fashion, but strangely, did not DQ those flights already made in violation of the safety code. Now I had planned ahead. My launch concept was to launch for a standard rod launcher, but with three threads running from the nose to three helpers (two, me and my teammate would have sufficient with the wind) who would all be standing 20 ft away from the rocket and release the threads at launch. But after the rocket holding business, they came up with the Calvinball rule saying no human interaction at all (or what ever). Had I known of the new rule in advance, It would have been trivial to make a purely mechanical release mechanism. As it happened, they would not allow holding the strings even if people were 20 or 200 Ft away from the model being launched.
Alan