snz referees (Read 1,877 times)

[dirttracker]

I am at a loss as to why a (normal) person would want to give up his time and effort to become an snz referee, only to be abused, ridiculed,dispised,and treated like something yourve found on the bottom of your shoe. Do any competitorsthink they have a good ref at their track,would be interesting to find out.

[bikeboy]

Dec 18, 2008 10:10:59 GMT 12 dirttracker said:

I am at a loss as to why a (normal) person would want to give up his time and effort to become an snz referee, only to be abused, ridiculed,dispised,and treated like something yourve found on the bottom of your shoe. Do any competitorsthink they have a good ref at their track,would be interesting to find out.

the voice of reason, great post,

alot of poeple on here would benefit from spending a night being a ref, the first time you make a call you will be abused by someone who will claim no one else ever gets pulled up for that,

then if you do not make a call everyone will claim you are either blind, biased, or just plain stupid,

[Aaron Drever]

Interesting, I always take my hat of to SNZ Officals (Most of them bar a couple). Last year at WP they had two new officals (not to speedway just to the classes that they run at WP), and yes they made some mistakes as was expected, but 100% improvement on the way drivers were spoken to (especially MiniStocks) and they respected what the drivers do and worked with promotion.

They have moved on this season. It has been apparent that some officals think the show is all about them? They want to be the limelight thats ok if this is NRL and you are Billy Harrigan? But Honestly if you do this job and you are seeking respect then respect earns respect. You don't just get it cause you put a SNZ shirt on?

[The Observer]

Noel is the referee at Greymouth, and I think he does a great Job.

I've commentated for a season or two, and we stood next to Noel. Its a tough job, and I appreciate the time and effort he puts into it.

I've been repremanded by him before, and he didn;t rant and rave. He explained his position, what he saw, and why he was doing what he did.

Greenstone Park - a great place to race, with some awesome officials and a great atmosphere.

Good luck to all referees this season - its a tough job, and I'm glad I can stick to racing.

[schumaaka]

Mmmmmm what do you say to this one? Yes this can be a crappy job, but there have been plenty of crappy Refs over the years and some great ones as well.

Here's the problem as I see it, the ref no matter how good cant follow 20 cars at the same time. As a result off this often they do not see the start of the incident and have to rely on others for feed back.

Most Refs havn't raced in the grades that they are Reffing and often don't understand how the cars react when being driven and this also causes problems.

Video replays are not used by the refs which is just crazy, our other major sports utilise this and as a result the refereeing decesions are most of the time correct.

If you can show the incident to the drivers and the crowd you will have a whole lot less arguemnets as everyone can look at the incident and not just guess at what happened.

We will utilise this along with Experienced ex Drivers as Aid for the NZ Super Saloons in Cromvegas on 8,9,10th Jan.

If I was the ref I would want the use of the video for refereeing.

[MadMarty13B]

Dec 18, 2008 10:10:59 GMT 12 dirttracker said:

I am at a loss as to why a (normal) person would want to give up his time and effort to become an snz referee, only to be abused, ridiculed,dispised,and treated like something yourve found on the bottom of your shoe. Do any competitorsthink they have a good ref at their track,would be interesting to find out.

Respect but for referees to get respect they must show they are deserving of it.Up untill a few years ago a lot of referees thought they were gods and treated many competitors like as you are saying stuff on the bottom of their shoes. A few seasons ago this all changed now the majority of referees are human and treat competitors with respect.

[entonox]

It is just not the Referee's that cop a lot of flak but also Stewards.

I am a firm believer that is all in the way you handle people. I am an Account Manager for the Hawkes Bay & Gisborne areas & I work with all type of people, in many different situations. Getting into an argument does not solve anything.

I have been a Steward for the last two seasons & I have really enjoyed my job. Sometimes you get the odd competitor that will just not want to communicate but would rather try & tell you that he is right & the rules don't matter. But generally talking to people usually gets a far better response than arguing with them. I find my approach to competitors & parents alike has been quite effective so far. Yes I have raced before, not just in speedway but also circuit racing & karting, so I feel I have a reasonable knowledge of how things can happen.

I just wish more people were willing to put their hand up & have a go. There are many experienced officials & competitors you can learn from.

I agree with Schumaaka about video coverage. But that would mean to get it right, every car would have to be equipped with a camera. Lets see how this progresses.

[41ford]

The Ref's are like any other sport. If we did not have them there would be no racing plain and simple.

We are all human and point the finger, but try pointing the finger back toward yourself, not easy but it makes you think.

Good or bad at least they put there hand up to do it!! Just hope there mind is in the right place when they do the job eh??

[tremors]

Surely it cant be that difficult to be a referree -- they only have to observe a section of the track -- , not the whole track all by themselves -- these guys are experienced in what they do - I cant see why there is so much dispute !!

One thing that really gets up my nose is when drivers continually ' jump ' the start or on restarts , passing cars before crossing the start finish line , yet they are never penalised - quite often cars will pass when a yellow has just come on in the hope they will get away with it on the restart , and most of the time they do ---

maybe a referree can comment for me please

[Cheque Book]

I think richard at huntly is good, had a new driver in productions join up t is year which I help out he was great with her, fair,
personally he stood up for me and sorted things out , so we can go racing.

[jamo91]

This week we seemed to have referee issues W.P, I saw him arguing with a well known superstock driver and a ministock mum and then there is the Steve Williams debacle.

The ref in question has been sacked in the past for his performance and I see he has re-appeared this season, was this because there was no one else to fill the void left by Poppa Dreaves?

[Aaron Drever]

My understanding was that Carl Drever (15 years experience ex Western Springs) and Robert Kennedy was appointed by the promotions team due the large number of complaints and drivers promising not to turn up.

The subject person was offered a Assistant Stewards Position, however did not want this role.

The President, the promoter and the Steward had a meeting with the subject to explain the situation regarding the mammoth amount of complaints that had been tabled and how that in the past their were no other options available to the club in terms of officials. They were not able to get resolution and the subject was not around last season or made 1 or 2 appearances.

This season things have changed. For the better I guess based on what Jamo has said perhaps not?

[entonox]

Dec 18, 2008 18:11:22 GMT 12 tremors said:

Surely it cant be that difficult to be a referrer -- they only have to observe a section of the track -- , not the whole track all by themselves -- these guys are experienced in what they do - I cant see why there is so much dispute !!

One thing that really gets up my nose is when drivers continually ' jump ' the start or on restarts , passing cars before crossing the start finish line , yet they are never penalized - quite often cars will pass when a yellow has just come on in the hope they will get away with it on the restart , and most of the time they do ---

maybe a referrer can comment for me please

It can sometimes be very difficult to observe one part of the track, when you only have a couple of SNZ people out in the middle & one referee in the box. Some tracks like P/Nth have an abundance of spotters, which makes the job a little bit easier. But somewhere like Meeanee, we only have three or four staff, maybe five on a good night, it does make things hard. As a steward it is pretty near impossible to try & watch all the racing as there are all sorts of jobs to be done through the race meeting, which takes you away from the racing.

The reason as I see it that can cause problems, is people's interpretation of the rule book & its' rules. It is great that Tim has instigated getting the rule book redone. This will hopefully clear a lot of the issues up. Also you get clashes of personalities & then you get officials & competitors that think they are bigger than the sport.

I hope this helps answer your question.

[1badmofo]

Love them or loathe them...

They are there to do a job to the best of there ability and of course this doesn't stop the mistakes. After all we are only human.

Marty you mentioned about respect...
To even take on the role they at least deserve some respect.

Just cause they don't call it your way dosen't make them the any less of a person. You just have to either:
1. Get on with and accept the consequences or
2. Protest that you where unfairly treated etc.

IMO I believe "what happens on the field stays on the feild" END OF STORY.

[MadMarty13B]

As in regards to respect I was talking about up to afew years ago where i have witness a certain few and they way they talked to drivers and this wasnt even over racing incidents this was at championship scruts and such and example Nelson NZ champs a scrut was set up at various check points a well known driver or two were allowed to push their cars through( save battery) when another driver tried to do the same he was gruffly told no,when this driver tried to politley point out about the other 2 well known drivers the ref or steward or what ever hurled abuse and threatend to trailer him leaving the driver bewildered its just one of many incidents I have seen,sure the majority have cleaned their act up in the last few years and I have been really impressed by some of them, but the certain ones above how the hell can you respect that!?

[xtravert]

It is quite funny how some people use the old term of "trailering a competitor". You cannot actually trailer a car,you can exclude a driver from racing, but someone else is quite entitled to get into that car & drive it, as long as they are on the scrutineering form & have past all the safety checks etc...

[schumaaka]

I can give plenty of examples of poor performances by Refs and Stewards how ever I thought I would do something positive.

The best NZ Champs Ref for the Super Saloons that I have encountered has been Maurice Clarkson. Maurice Reffed the national title for several years, he was quietly spoken, didn,t raise his voice or waste his time with frivalous offences. He could differentiate between someone going under the pole line to miss a driver who changed line and a person using it to get an advantage, understood what a slide job was and knew what bump and spin or slide was.

Maurice Reffed with Pete Slowman as his assistant in Napier and that was fantastic. I was involved in an incident in the qualifying which seen me sent to the back of the field and ultimatley the repercharge, Pete came and spoke to me about it, while not happy about it I respected their decesion more because of who they were and put it behind me and got on with the job.

Maurice came and spoke to me about it later and while it was probably a 50/50 call I appreciated it that he took the time to do this.

Experience, inter personal skills and respect are some of the qualities that make a great ref.

The best refs are the ones that can defferentiate between what is intentional and what is just a 50/50 racing incident, Don't be a parking warden or a traffic cop interested in gathering revenue, rule on the important ones and leave the rest alone.

Unless it was clearly intentional leave it alone, excluding a driver from the points in a race for going under the pole line or getting out of shape in a corner is just crazy and does nothing for the sport. Keep them racing and in the championship unless they are intentionally trying to take other competitors out, if thats is clearly the case then send them to the trailer.

We don't follow the 2 second rule so there will be contact, understanding what is intentional and what is not is the key. When the front car breaks early in a turn there will be contact, if you give them more room the a car will simply fill the gap in front of you.

At 140k using the normal road rules on a dry road you should be following the car in front by 56 meters!!!!.

Drivers are racing to win the national title let them get on with it and only rule when you have to, and a quite chat sometimes gets more of a result than a lecture and infringement notice.

Track bias can also be a problem with refs sometimes tending to favour there local cars. Independent Refs for these major titles and a format change away from points racing would make the sport much more user friendly, user friendly and marketable for everyone.

The last race should have the winner going across the line first, not waiting around for hours for a ref to make a decesion.

Anyway, you guessed it, roll on the New Zealand Super Saloon Champs in CromVegas!!!

[dirttracker]

Judging by the lack of response from competitors etc, my first impression of the apathy that exists towards refs is now self evident. I can see why there is such a great turnover in this position as who would want to turn up each nite being the most hated person at the track,time after time. I for one would like to congratulate all refs,and indeed all snz officials from all tracks and wish them well in the the future.