Man, one little word really changes things. The previous wording said the air dams MAY extend straight downwards and obviously nothing can extend beyond the front contour of the bumper. Perhaps going straight down is just the easiest thing to do thus the reason why a majority of the cars with air dams are like this.
I guess my point in saying that I'm surprised it hasn't been protested is that it's certainly a departure from the norm. Not that it isn't legal, but it's different. And I agree that it's very clean... maybe even too clean. So clean that I've got to really dig through the wording of the rules to see for myself. I'm not much for thinking out of the box truthfully and I guess I'm more of a traditionalist but perhaps the reason it hasn't been protested is because it is totally legal. But I could certainly see a knee jerk reaction of saying "hey wait, that doesn't look like something that should be legal"... it just happened to me. Kudos to you Pat.
But are air dams even allowed in DT? I don't know what it says now for 2011 but it used to say something like "intended to represent a typical diesel pickup truck". Again, maybe some tightening is needed, I dunno.
In searching for some DT images I came with this and got a good laugh:
The Rocket Ranger has a smoothed out stock front bumper (is that legal?) with a little air dam underneath it and the Banks truck has a one off front bumper with air vents (is that legal?), a giant non-stock bulbous hood (is that legal?), and a partial tube chassis (is that legal?). Oh, and the exhaust exits up through the bed. Now that I know is not legal.
One other thing I am sure of is that Mr. Cole is working hard at trying to get banned.