He's still here...........
Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
True - there are limits to a President's power - and I'm sure Johnson probably received a lot of similar requests to keep the Beatles and the Stones out.
But with regard to military and BLM lands, a preference on the part of the commander-in-chief can have a strong effect upon the treatment one receives from the underlings.
I suspect that those the NAE team are dealing with aren't against the idea of land speed attempts so much as they are finding it difficult to say "Yes".
Even a simple acknowledgement from the White House regarding what the NAE team is doing might be all they would need to have a fee waived, or extend an extra day to them, or set up a meeting.
We're almost half way to the point of reaching a searchable status on the petition website. Once it's searchable, it's a matter of directing it into the hands of the media through press releases, correspondence, phone calls - the awareness will grow.
Until then, continue hounding your friends . . .