Slovenian GP Krsko Saturday September 8th

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

5 hours ago, bill94d said:

what the referee did last night was correct. Woofy was a bike length back when the clock ran out. 

It seems that this is the refs and the FIMs interpretation of the rule, the race didn’t start and someone has to be excluded because of it and woffy was a metre back, the other weren’t ready but were at the tapes , it does seem unfair on woffinden but I’m all for strict rules and riders do mess about too much 

Edited September 9, 2018 by THE DEAN MACHINE

[bigcatdiary]

16 minutes ago, Vince said:

Appalling decision by the Ref that gives every appearance of being corrupt but the whole start situation was made worse by a start marshall who must have wanted his 15 minutes of fame. He was such a pain in the arse that by that stage of the meeting everybody had learned to ignore him.

I do wonder if the start Marshall was just doing what he was told.

This GP was dreadful although clearly a fair bit of that was down to the weather which had left the track in a dreadful state, but from the gate processions do nothing to encourage support in fact rather the opposite.

Unfortunately with little racing last night it highlighted a dreadful decision by a referee and this isn’t the first dreadful mistake by a referee this year. The FIM need to get a grip on this now because poor GP,s and poor referees make for poor attendances.

If the FIM have tightened up on gardening at the start then they should come clean and say so.

Last nights GP hasn’t exactly tempted me to attend Krsko in the future which is a shame because friends have enjoyed GP,s there in the past.

 

[hyderd]

6 minutes ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

It seems that this is the refs and the FIM decision, the race didn’t start and someone has to be excluded because of it and woffy was a meter back, the other weren’t ready but were at the tapes , it does seem unfair on woffinden but I’m all for strict rules and riders do mess about too much 

Just excuses from the ref and the FIM, the rule states that riders must be at the gate ready to race inside the 2 minute time allowed, 3 riders were not ready to race, 3 riders should of been excluded but that would of made a mockery of the sport so they chose Woffy as a scapegoat, as he was furthest away from the tapes.

IMHO all 4 riders must make their way to the tapes when told to, no gardening allowed and the race starts. End of. 

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

10 minutes ago, hyderd said:

Just excuses from the ref and the FIM, the rule states that riders must be at the gate ready to race inside the 2 minute time allowed, 3 riders were not ready to race, 3 riders should of been excluded but that would of made a mockery of the sport so they chose Woffy as a scapegoat, as he was furthest away from the tapes.

IMHO all 4 riders must make their way to the tapes when told to, no gardening allowed and the race starts. End of. 

It was harsh but I think it’s good to see that the FIM are starting to get tough on unneeded excess in the sport, But consistent is needed, the others weren’t ready but what would the reaction be if all 4 had been excluded ? They need to set an example that it won’t be tolerated and with woffy being a meter back he was the example, I suppose it’s abit like when there is a crash involving all 4 riders and nobody is really at fault but the rule says someone has to be excluded 

Edited September 9, 2018 by THE DEAN MACHINE

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

On another note does Jason Doyle get a consistancy medal or something if he gets a warning in every GP?

[bill94d]

3 minutes ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

On another note does Jason Doyle get a consistancy medal or something if he gets a warning in every GP?

Nobody quite worked out why he got last night's warning.

[Big Al]

The restrained comment by Woffinden "It is what it is".....so what was "it"?  Probably something he would get into trouble for, had he said it. In which case the missing word is probably "bent".

 

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

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 

[OveFundinFan]

Terrible meeting, worse then others that have been held there.  The track material looked peculiar, wonder if that added to a poor racing surface.  The organisers need to take a good look at themselves for taking a GP to tracks such as Krsko.  Its good to take the world championship to different countries but its all a balance, and tracks that can be raced MUST be one of the top priorities.

Really pleased to see Holder back to being in the action, and on a difficult track.. On the other hand, sad to see Emil struggling, ok, when he gated he did what others did - clear off.  Its going to be really tight when giving out wild cards.  If thins stay the same with Holder and Emil, I can see Holder getting a WC and Emil not.

As for the referee, started bad when he gave Doyle a tape warning when it didn't seem he moved.  But then to exclude TW. Riders had been messing about all night at the tapes - doing gardening to an excess, yet he takes out Tai in that race under those circumstances.  Via Phil Morris he could have given all 16 riders (+2 reserves) that delaying the start will have its consequences.  Tai was no worse then many others, including other riders in THAT race, yet he was the one he made an example of.. Bad move by the referee, a Polish ref excluding the leader of the championship when 2 of his closest rivals were in the same race, and worse still those two were Polish.  Fortunately Zmarzlik could not take full advantage of the situation and take more points, but some damage was done.   IF Zmarzlik wins the championship by 1 or 2 points, everyone will remember the day of poor referring, much to Zmarzliks disadvantage.

Like Cardiff, Cookie did not have the best of luck, he should have ended up with more points then he did.

Lets hope the last two meetings bring the racing the riders and fans want.

[False dawn]

This is just another case of referees applying the rules in an inconsistent fashion.

Like many on here. I've seen lots of new rules introduced over the years. Some of these have been controversial, even downright unpopular. But at the end of the day it isn't the rules that cause the problems it's the referees application of them. Consistency is the watch word. 

What happened last night was job's worth and we all know it. There have been countless examples of riders "not being read to race" after the clock ticks to zero. Many examples could be seen last night. Of course you have to define what being "ready to race" means. Taking last night as an example, the starting marshal seemed to be determined to have the riders within a gnat's whatsis of his idea of where the riders should be. So where he was calling riders forward after the clock had gone to zero, were all those riders subject to exclusion. Of course not. We'd have had more exclusions than not. Forget that heat 16 last night was the most mouth watering line up at that point in the championship you could imagine, every race counts in the GP series. A bloody silly exclusion of any rider in any race is significant, by definition. 

Bartosz Zmarzlik beats Tai Woffinden by 1 point to win the World Championship on 6th October and guess what everyone will be talking about?

[False dawn]

14 minutes ago, OveFundinFan said:

IF Zmarzlik wins the championship by 1 or 2 points, everyone will remember the day of poor referring, much to Zmarzliks disadvantage.

Great minds eh?

[Gavan]

1 hour ago, bill94d said:

Time to outlaw all this gardening once and for all. The 2 minute rule should be applied, that is ready to race and what the referee did last night was correct. Woofy was a bike length back when the clock ran out. There should be a line some distance back from the start. You cross that and you are under the start marshalls orders and no gardening. You must cross that line in the 2 minutes. always thought gardening was the worst thing about modern speedway.

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

[PHILIPRISING]

16 minutes 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

PRETTY well spot on. It was a decision the referee didn't have to make. The riders were actually ready when he put on the exclusion light. He should simply have got on with starting the race and nobody would have been none the wiser. Also agree it was a very poor SGP. 

[rusky]

Something fishy for sure. In my opinion the vigorous gesticulating of the rider in Yellow, to the referee was instrumental in Tai’s exclusion. 

[bill94d]

43 minutes 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

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. 

[PHILIPRISING]

6 minutes 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. 

NO one is suggesting that Tai was ready ... just that nor were the other three riders. It's not another discussion ... it is the same one. They then came to the tapes to the satisfaction of the start marshal so the race could have been started.

[sparks123]

4 hours ago, g13webb said:

That must be the worse SGP I've seen for sometime.    When our sport is struggling to promote its existence, why ever was it conceived to  have a top meeting here.  The track was an absolute disgrace that did nothing to enhance the sport at all.   A one line,  gate and go exercise, kills off more supporters than other reason.   It was a complete and utter joke.

The organisers only saviour has to be the most inept and bias  Referee,  ever to grace these occasions.   it takes me back to 1984, when USA v UK at Foxhall,   Eglese, an out spoken ref ,  stopped the race on the third lap, after Lee had taken the lead,  and excluded him,  because he had delayed the start.  It was a complete joke of a decision,  that showed everybody how much Eglese personally disliked Lee.   

Last nights decision  to exclude Woffy was of the same standard.   It was premeditated and executed, totally to give those Polish riders the added insensitive, knowing Woffy couldn't  make the semis now.  I'm amazed that everyone  accepted the exclusion without questioning it, even though,  the Ref had fabricated a rule that doesn't exist...     The 2 min ruling is given to the  riders so they present themselves ready to race.  Once at the start area, they become the responsibility of the (SM) Start Marshall .     He doesn't have a clock to  get the riders ready,   he gives them time to  prepare their space,  then calls them to the line.  When they are ready he holds his arms up and walks away,   thus reliving his duty and handing  the responsibility back to the ref to release the tapes.      Sometimes  the SM  allows the riders too much time ,   sometimes  they are super efficient and the races start quicker, but I have never seen a Referee exclude a rider when he is under the control of the  SM  .       If  we are to believe the decision last night, and riders have to be ready at the line when the 2min elapse,  then the clock has to be where the SM can see it, and be written in the rules so riders and fans are aware of this expectation..   

No this evil referee  concocted a rule, that was  for the sole benefits of the Polish riders who are trying to catch up with Woffy.      When something like this happens, it enhances the public perception that this sport is all but dead…..

     

I think Tai was harshly excluded.  Greg was the same at Cardiff and didn't get excluded.

At FIM events the start marshal will be told what to do (that's usually why they look up to the referee before they walk away).  Should the riders not be pulled up from gate 1- gate 4?

Inconsistent refereeing isn't new to the sport as Greg was excluded for not racing a couple of years ago but Joe Screen wasn't at Bydgoszcz when he let Mark Loram passed.  (Mark would have been eliminated in the format if he wasn't second).

Was it not also a British referee who excluded Tony R when he had a coming together with Mark and with Steffan Danno with Tony falling on both occasions?

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

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 

[Star Lady]

24 minutes ago, PHILIPRISING said:

NO one is suggesting that Tai was ready ... just that nor were the other three riders. It's not another discussion ... it is the same one. They then came to the tapes to the satisfaction of the start marshal so the race could have been started.

So really the debate is why were the other three riders not excluded

As a point of interest do the rules state what the responsibilities of the start marshall are and when they begin and end.

Also does anyone know. or can find out, if the referee mentioned being "ready to race" at the riders briefing before the GP.

[PHILIPRISING]

CANNOT answer your last point other than to say that I attended over 100 riders briefings and it was never mentioned. Most referees said very little although most common was "it won't be green light and go."