Slovenian GP Krsko Saturday September 8th

[racers and royals]

Unless the start marshall had been shipped in from Poland- there must have been some discussion between the SM and the referee as to how  he(the ref)wanted the starts to be conducted. As i said during the meeting last night`s start procedure is the same as you see week in week out in the Polish league. It`s always the same 2 things- riders have to have the front wheel right up to the tape and riders have to be pointing the bike straight ahead(normally gate 4 is picked up on this).

[Gavan]

2 hours ago, Gavan said:

Think you need to understand the rules before commenting.

Its irrelevant if your at the tapes, 5 metres back, 10 metres back , turned around and rode back, if your not ready to race your not ready to race.

Tai wasnt ready to race when the 2 minutes finished...................but neither were the other 3, Janowski certainly wasnt he was still gardening, its irrelevant that he was closer to the tapes than Tai was, he still wasnt lined up ready to race.

Tai had actually just sat back and let the Poles either side do there gardening , technically he was more ready to race then both of those.

By your definition you can be at the tapes , off your bike gardening , but thats ok...............it isnt your still not ready to race as the rules state

 

1 hour ago, bill94d said:

Don't understand your reasoning. How can you be "ready to race" 10 metres back? He wasn't "ready". Agreed the others weren't either but that is another discussion. I'm against all this gardening that goes on. 

Never said Tai was ready to race

The fact is the other 3 werent either they were still all gardening, (possible exception of Hancock).

Janowski was kicking and digging away and Tai was sat bike on one side cooling his clutch watching him.

 

[TheReturn]

2 hours ago, racers and royals said:

Unless the start marshall had been shipped in from Poland- there must have been some discussion between the SM and the referee as to how  he(the ref)wanted the starts to be conducted. As i said during the meeting last night`s start procedure is the same as you see week in week out in the Polish league. It`s always the same 2 things- riders have to have the front wheel right up to the tape and riders have to be pointing the bike straight ahead(normally gate 4 is picked up on this).

I think this may be the case that the start marshal and referee had discussed how the start process was going to be conducted last night. Which is fine, provided all riders had that same communication. I don't know if that happened.

If Tai and all other riders had that communication then Tai can have no complaints other than the fact the rule was not rigidly applied to other riders. 

[PHILIPRISING]

THE referee and the start marshal will always have a meeting but that does not include the riders, who know that they have to be ready at the tapes within the time limit. The process adopted by the referee and the start marshal last night may be common practice in Poland but it isn't in the SGPs. Yesterday in the race in question none of the four riders was actually ready so the question is why the referee chose to exclude one, and not the others, or warn all four.

Edited September 9, 2018 by PHILIPRISING

[Trotter65]

It was a terrible GP..it was a terrible decision to exclude Woffinden...as it turned out I don't think it mattered in the meeting as he wasn't riding or gating well enough to have got much from that race...but the decision was purely made to keep Zmarzlik in with a shout for Torun..very suspicious if you ask me

But regardless of that it was a terrible meeting and I doubt many casual fan or no diehard made it to the end...I taped it and ended up watching the starts and fast forwarding races..that's how good it was !

[James Carter]

What a shocking SGP. Made worse by effing Patryk Dudek winning. Nothing against him personally but I do personally hate him. 

National radio earlier this week and the presenter mentioned that he watched a bit of speedway to see if his theory of whoever gets to the first corner first wins. His theory held up so he didn't watch the rest of the meeting and was generally dismissive of speedway. We know he's wrong and then you get 23 heats of crap from Krsko. 

 

[Aces51]

3 hours ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

If woffinden does lose this title he can’t really blame that decision, he was poor last night full stop and needs to improve his gating, the next round is also a gators track 

They'll have to be snappy then.

[Steve Shovlar]

Some interesting comments on the Polish speedway site.

Some say the has bought embarrassment onto Polish speedway and it was frankly a disgrace as two of the other riders were also not ready. One said it stank with the ref giving Zmarzlik a huge helping hand. 

A Polish speedway commentator has called it karma, as a British ref threw out Zmarzlik unfairly from a race a couple of GP’s ago (I don’t recall what happened) Says it’s now 1-1.

The general consensus in Poland from fans is that the ref was very wrong.

[PHILIPRISING]

35 minutes ago, James Carter said:

What a shocking SGP. Made worse by effing Patryk Dudek winning. Nothing against him personally but I do personally hate him. 

 

CARE to tell us why? Always found him to be a quiet, polite, nice guy...

[Mark]

5 minutes ago, PHILIPRISING said:

CARE to tell us why? Always found him to be a quiet, polite, nice guy...

How can you hate someone that you have never met.    Crazy.

[Leg Trailer]

Like most sane people I found the atrocious refereeing decision to exclude Woffinden made a mockery of the meeting. How one person can be allowed to spoil a race in the way this Polish referee did, in 2018, with all the available means of video replay and the extra transparency that would normally achieve, is beyond me. I know poor referee decision making is outside the remit of Phil Morris and Graham Brodie on race nights, but the fact such respected men are being forced to witness such appallingly bad refereeing without being in a position to influence such behaviour is a sad indictment of where the sport is currently at, therefore some form of enhanced accountability for these referees needs to exist and exist fast!

The whole issue of whether Tai Woffinden was ready to race boils down to semantics and personal interpretation. Put simply, the rulebook needs amending to remove the possibility for a referee to piddle their own interpretation all over the rulebook without cause for reproach or a second set of eyes. Graham Brodie shares the same box as the referee on race nights and would be an ideal candidate to stand as a form of Match Umpire, a man to whom the race night referee can confer or more importantly the man who could perhaps prompt a rethink? Just a thought. I don't like to poke fault with a system without offering a pinch of a suggestion as to how things could be improved and to be honest it's only the odd rogue ref who needs this form of babysitting thankfully. Obviously a flaw in the vetting process is responsible for the fact he was allowed to influence the evenings entertainment in the way he did. And don't get me started on that Start Marshall. Unbelievable pedanticism.

Sadly, the starts are killing this years GP. Simple as that. This ridiculous new rule of no moving at the start has stifled natural gating talent and more importantly the momentum of the evening. A once much loved element has been zapped from the sport but more sickeningly has now turned most GP's into a bore. The time wasted everytime a race is pulled back because a rider dained to fart at the tapes makes each GP a marathon affair for everyone watching. They will drive potential new supporters of the game away in droves by persisting with this diabolical new rule. Ironically, matches were smoother affairs in the days of tape touching which was understandably eradicated due to the delays it caused. But now they have taken a retrograde step in allowing no movement whatsoever! I mean, who on earth approved this utter nonesense?! Bring back tape touching and the meetings will be more entertaining and smoother than is currently the case. Yes, that's how absurd it has become!

Lastly, back to last nights referee Mr.Artur Kusmierz. A Polish referee excluding the British leader of the World Championship in a race where two rivals to the Championship also race and they happen to be Polish too? Hmmm. He would arguably be on a sticky wicket should Maciej and Tai have tussled in a racing incident where one rider fell but to exclude Tai in the circumstances he did is downright criminal in my book and a sad reminder of how farcical speedway can be when in the hands of an immature referee. When moments like this occur I find myself head in hands, saddened to admit that speedway still stands just one small step up from acts like wrestling in terms of acceptability as a serious sport.

Sort it out now, FIM! You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater in a tragic biblical manner.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 9, 2018 by Leg Trailer

[waytogo28]

2 minutes ago, Leg Trailer said:

Sort it out now, FIM! You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater in a tragic biblical manner.

Of course, they won't "sort it out" they never do ( unless they make things worse ). The organisers steam blindly on with the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome as their yardstick. Everything is well in the world of speedway, is the cry!

[racers and royals]

5 minutes ago, Leg Trailer said:

Like most sane people I found the atrocious refereeing decision to exclude Woffinden made a mockery of the meeting. How one person can be allowed to spoil a race in the way this Polish referee did, in 2018, with all the available means of video replay and the extra transparency that would normally achieve, is beyond me. I know poor referee decision making is outside the remit of Phil Morris and Graham Brodie on race nights, but the fact such respected men are being forced to witness such appallingly bad refereeing without being in a position to influence such behaviour is a sad indictment of where the sport is currently at, therefore some form of enhanced accountability for these referees needs to exist and exist fast!

The whole issue of whether Tai Woffinden was ready to race boils down to semantics and personal interpretation. Put simply, the rulebook needs amending to remove the possibility for a referee to piddle their own interpretation all over the rulebook without cause for reproach or a second set of eyes. Graham Brodie shares the same box as the referee on race nights and would be an ideal candidate to stand as a form of Match Umpire, a man to whom the race night referee can confer or more importantly the man who could perhaps prompt a rethink? Just a thought. I don't like to poke fault with a system without offering a pinch of a suggestion as to how things could be improved and to be honest it's only the odd rogue ref who needs this form of babysitting thankfully. Obviously a flaw in the vetting process is responsible for the fact he was allowed to influence the evenings entertainment in the way he did. And don't get me started on that Start Marshall. Unbelievable pedanticism.

Sadly, the starts are killing this years GP. Simple as that. This ridiculous new rule of no moving at the start has stifled natural gating talent and more importantly the momentum of the evening. A once much loved element has been zapped from the sport but more sickeningly has now turned most GP's into a bore. The time wasted everytime a race is pulled back because a rider dained to fart at the tapes makes each GP a marathon affair for everyone watching. They will drive potential new supporters of the game away in droves by persisting with this diabolical new rule. Ironically, matches were smoother affairs in the days of tape touching which was understandably eradicated due to the delays it caused. But now they have taken a retrograde step in allowing no movement whatsoever! I mean, who on earth approved this utter nonesense?! Bring back tape touching and the meetings will be more entertaining and smoother than is currently the case. Yes, that's how absurd it has become!

Lastly, back to last nights referee Mr.Artur Kusmierz. A Polish referee excluding the British leader of the World Championship in a race where two rivals to the Championship also race and they happen to be Polish too? Hmmm. He would arguably be on a sticky wicket should Maciej and Tai have tussled in a racing incident where one rider fell but to exclude Tai in the circumstances he did is downright criminal in my book and a sad reminder of how farcical speedway can be when in the hands of an immature referee. When moments like this occur I find myself head in hands, saddened to admit that speedway still stands just one small step up from acts like wrestling in terms of acceptability as a serious sport.

Sort it out now, FIM! You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater in a tragic biblical manner.

 

 

 

 

The start marshall was only following the instructions from the referee- the ref was telling him which riders to bring up to tapes- surely you could see that.

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

10 minutes ago, waytogo28 said:

Of course, they won't "sort it out" they never do ( unless they make things worse ). The organisers steam blindly on with the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome as their yardstick. Everything is well in the world of speedway, is the cry!

What if the FIM agreed with the decision ?

[hyderd]

6 hours ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

There are those people who say all tracks should be big and have plenty of dirt on them to get great racing, well last night had both 

The GP's have the best riders in the world battling it out for the title of the worlds best rider, tracks pay an important role in making the GP's fair,safe and entertaining.

Last night was pretty dull and any would be new fan/s will probs not bother watching/going again

[speedsteer]

Worse GP I have ever seen. The track was terrible and not a good advertisement for speedway. Don't get me started on the

terrible antics of the Starting marshall  and the disgrace full Polish referee. Tia was certainly not at his best and has not

been for the last 2 GPs. In the interview after the heat 16 fiasco he said that it is what it is and also mention Karma,

which is exactly what happened as the Polish rider who had the most to gain from his exclusion did not make the final.

[James Carter]

Ahh I'm only kidding. Sure he's a nice guy

He's just the rider who makes you hate speedway. Big blast from the start and then hog the inside. If the tracks rubbish then it's 3 in n the bag for Patryk if not then you never know.   Think of riders like Zmarzlik, FF, Tai, Gollob, Loram, Screen etc and they get you off your feet as they come from the back. 

All that said I did hate his tashe. I think we can all agree on that. 

 

[Vince]

5 hours ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

What if the FIM agreed with the decision ?

I don't think the FIM know what Speedway is!

[waiheke1]

6 hours ago, waytogo28 said:

Of course, they won't "sort it out" they never do ( unless they make things worse ). The organisers steam blindly on with the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome as their yardstick. Everything is well in the world of speedway, is the cry!

Tbf, there is not a lot wrong with the GPs is there? World class line up, Generally excellent racing, some great tracks and some excellent stadiums. 

A couple of poor tracks and a couple of poor stadiums, but for the most part the series is everything you could want it to be.

I will admit there have been a couplecof terrible refs this year (cardiff also springs to mind). The starts are cleaner and more even than ever, all thats needed is a way to ensure the race isnt called back when rider's make a perfect start - no issue for me with the warning system per se. 

[Sidney the robin]

It was a really poor meeting but it was great to see Doyle back on it and even greater to see a better Chris Holder he battled really hard.The track was so frustrating it looked nice but riders would get close but then  could not land a blow i just hope that disgraceful refereeing decision does not cost Tai the title.Also why did Phil Morris not CONDEMN the decision in his interview very disappointed in him surely he has an opinion.