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Starting Gate Shenanigans


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Messing about at the starting gate has now become very silly and is causing a lot of wasted time and aggravation all around.

 

What can be done about it?

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The referees should start excluding them for delaying the start or not being ready to race,a few exclusions would soon sort it out!!

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The ref put's the 2 minute warning on when riders enter the track. If a rider is not ready to start when that time runs out, he's excluded. The rider has two minutes. If it turns out he's had more, the ref is a tosser.

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Riders have 2 minutes to reach the tapes, and once all 4 are at the gate, they have 20 seconds to 'dig' and if you mess about after that, your excluded, and have to go from 15 back. That will punish the rider and team.

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Riders who hold back until the others have moved up also is a time waster and when more than one rider wants to line up last it seems to take forever to get them away. I would suggest that in all races the riders should be made to line up in grid order from 1 to 4.

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I've seen it happen when the referee just runs out of patience . A Workington v Glasgow meeting in 2005 , the ref put both Carl Stonehewer and Shane Parker back 15 metres after the pair took an age to settle at the tapes . Seems the referee is the only person who can really put a stop to all this nonsense

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They should do what they do in the GP and have a clock on the centre showing how much of the 2 mins is left, if a rider isn't ready, he's out. It works brilliantly in the GP, a few riders got excluded once and it never happened again. Generally speedway is run in such a slap dash way that (perhaps it should be renamed to this, slapdashway) that the 2 mins can easily end up being 3, yes I have timed it in the past (anorak!)

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There used to be concrete start gates years ago I believe in the fifties. Does anyone know why they were dispensed with ??

It's so frustrating having all these false starts nowadays I'd like to see a consistent surface used in the starting grids so there is no gardening.

Must have been a reason why concrete start grids were stopped.

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Riders who hold back until the others have moved up also is a time waster and when more than one rider wants to line up last it seems to take forever to get them away. I would suggest that in all races the riders should be made to line up in grid order from 1 to 4.

That is the rule.

 

The starting marshal should call then to the tapes from gate 1 to gate 4. Anyone disobeying the starting marshal should be excluded disqualified.

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1 Go back to concrete starts, stops all that gardening.

 

2 Have a line, a few yards short of the tapes, when all the riders are ready, bring them forward to the tapes, and off you go, no gardening.

 

3 Once you put the two minutes on, the race will start within that two minutes, have a clock at the start line as they do in SGP.

 

4 Have a referees strong enough to start excluding riders for delaying starts, if they ALL did that it would soon stop.

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There used to be concrete start gates years ago I believe in the fifties. Does anyone know why they were dispensed with ??

It's so frustrating having all these false starts nowadays I'd like to see a consistent surface used in the starting grids so there is no gardening.

Must have been a reason why concrete start grids were stopped.

Perhaps in case a rider flips at the start? I can remember one at Leicester who broke his back but at the moment due to a complete memory loss I can't think who it was. I always used to know so I must be cracking up faster than I thought. :lol:

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That is the rule.

 

The starting marshal should call then to the tapes from gate 1 to gate 4. Anyone disobeying the starting marshal should be excluded disqualified.

 

And if the starting marshal tries to get riders to come into line, you get riders like Iversen throw a strop and swing their wheel at them... then you get the fans moaning about the marshal!

 

I agree completely with you by the way.

I reckon there is far less gardening now than the 70s and 80s and tge whole start ing procesd is much cleaner and fairer.

 

Spot on.

 

Amazes me to see people complaining about delays then advocating a return to the old starting system which took far longer to start a race.. and was much less fair.

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I must say I quiet enjoy the build up to each race? Getting the line up read out as the riders are at the tapes, seeing who's off what gate, anticipating who's going to make the break first, who's the better gater, who looks comfortable on his bike, who looks raring to go, who can take the pressure better than his opponent.. All this in 2 minutes. I think it creates the excitement of the race, especially if it's a last heat decider etc.

 

 

Maybe it's just me....

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I must say I quiet enjoy the build up to each race? Getting the line up read out as the riders are at the tapes, seeing who's off what gate, anticipating who's going to make the break first, who's the better gater, who looks comfortable on his bike, who looks raring to go, who can take the pressure better than his opponent.. All this in 2 minutes. I think it creates the excitement of the race, especially if it's a last heat decider etc.

Maybe it's just me....

Not got a problem either to be honest.

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