Rules are rules, right?

I found myself in the middle of yet another rule debate today.

When there are more than 120 racers they put into affect the 80% rule. (Rule 614.4 pg 26.) This means that they let only the top 80% of the finishers move on to the second run. The thing is that I know this rule because a few years ago they changed it a little bit, mostly to help the classes with a smaller field. They made it so that if your class would have less than 10 racers after the 20% was taken away then they would not apply the rule to that class. Today, this was the case with my class (standing women). We only had 10 finishers so, the rule should not have been applied. Unfortunately, it was and because I had such a slow first run I was second to last, putting me out of the 80%. When I saw the second run start list and I was not on it, I went to find the chief of race or a member of the jury or SOMEBODY. I ended up arguing in Spanish and English and got no where. I was so frustrated. In France I was told that I could not start because they had printed some things wrong and the rule book was the definitive answer and that trumps all. Today I KNEW the rule, I KNEW the page in the rule book but I still didn’t get to start.

How is it possible that the rules only are applied when they want to? Now because I technically don’t have a team captain I had to go to the team captain’s meeting and argue it out myself- oh what fun. I won, they were wrong, but that doesn’t give me my second run. Maybe it will prevent it from happening in the future.