Not posted on this forum before, so Hi everyone. I found it by typing some phrases in google & these threads about last night's GP came up. I had to look as I was so incensed by what I saw go on.
I am an announcer at a track in the UK (and have announced at three other tracks in the past), so am in a privileged position, I guess. I have got to work with many referees past & present, so this thread intrigues me more than the one about Pedersen being dirty, although I may be tempted to post on that one too
The incident between Pedersen & Brhel was clear cut & I feel that most referees would have seen it the same way. There may not have been much contact, but the fact is, Pedersen pushed Brhel over & this caused the fall. Therefore, I don't see that the referee had much choice.
The incident where Tony fell was less obvious, clearly. They all moved over & he ran out of room. It could have been so much worse & I was glad to see him make a full & speedy recovery. Whilst the referee showed "common sense" he took an easy way out in a lot of ways. There is absolutley no allowance in the rule book for not excluding somebody should the race be stopped after the first turn after someone has fallen. (I have discussed this with 2 heads of the SCB in the past & present & they were both adamant). I am not suggesting the rule book is right, but the rule book is there for a reason & Posselwhite didn't make a decision when he should have. There are many arguments here, but if you apply the letter of the law to it's fullest degree then Tony should have been excluded as he was the reason the race had to be stopped. I don't feel you could exclude Andersen as he was in front, therefore he could pick his line & Gollob was "just in the way." It would have been a harsh decision, but in the letter of the "law" - the right one.
As for the Pedersen/Hancock incident. How anyone can defend either the rider (Pedersen) or Posselwhite's decision is beyond me. Pedersen came from nowhere & rode straight into Hancock. Pedersen was certainly culpable for the crash & Posselwhite for not being able to make the right decision. His "all four back" decision was one of the worst I have seen & was made even more so by the fact that he was able to watch it from every possible angle before making the decision. I suspect that there could have been two things that influenced his decision. 1) Ole Olsen, who will do anything for a Dane to win (he has far too much power) & 2) the decision he made over the crash with Tony. Having not excluded anyone there, he may have felt he had to make the same decision in the second one.
Comments concerning the re-run & suggesting Hancock "fenced" Pedersen? You must have been using the same glasses as the referee, who incidentally I have worked with more than a few times in the past & I have to say that he is one of the worst there is, so his inept performance came as no shock to me.