An air of despondency ...

An air of despondency

Before I start this espistle, remember that the all colour blog can be found here together with much more speedway related material.

It’s raining again … it rained yesterday and now it’s raining again as I make my way along the A419 towards Blunsdon. Rain such as this will certainly curtail our activities this week but I was in for a shock!

The place was deserted .. all it needed was the ball of dry grass to blow across the car park as in western films of yesteryear.

When Gerald and Punch appear it is clear that not all is well. Infact, it’s a disaster.

Not only is it drenchingly wet, but we have suffered at the hands of thieves and robbers – the locks have been broken and a mass of equipment has gone.

As if the job wasn’t hard enough as it is, we now have to cope with the loss of an air pressure pump, a jet washer unit, a rechageable drill and two batteries, two generators, numerous bits and bobs and, most sadly of all, Punch’s entire tool kit. The tractors have had their diesel siphoned off and the door to our workroom is broken, the lock shattered.

We sit down for a cup of coffee. At least Gerald had a good holiday. He regales us with stories of his adventures in an attempt to keep up our spirits but we are a sad threesome.

First task for the day is to empty the water tanker. We used the suction facility to suck up hundreds of gallons of sludge from turns 1, 2 and 3 prior to the last meeting of the year. All of that muck now has to be vented out before its sets in the tanker.

Having filled the tanker with water we vent the water and sludge out at the top of the car park. A brown lake laps at the wheels of the tanker. “It might drain away by next March,” quips Gerald. Punch and I doubt it!

We refill the tanks of all the diesel vehicles and make sure that the engines haven’t been bled dry. Fortunately, after much coaxing and cursing, each engine splutters into life amidst a vast grey, swirling cloud of fumes – so much for “global warming.”

Some kind soul has donated an old freezer unit. It sits in the middle of the yard. Closer inspection reveals that it contains some unmentionable fluid, the smell of which makes us gag! Gerald wanders off to seek out anyone who might knows its origin. Punch and I keep our distance and continue filling tanks.

Brian Cox arrives to dismantle the centre green advertising hoardings. He is his usual affable self, always looking on the bright side of life. The gloom is lifted temporarily.

Gerald discovers that the freezer unit has “walked” into our yard from the greyhound operation. He assures us that it is soon to be reunited with its owners.

We venture out onto the track to inspect the damage done by the rain. The drains have done a good job – there is little surface water apart from at the very edges of the track where the air fence once stood. We consider getting the big blade out to make a start on shifting some of the dirt from the straights to the corners. As the season has progressed the two straights have developed cambers, a definite rising in the middle of the track. This will need to be shaved down, the resulting materials being spread around the four bends where the shale is very thin over the cinder base. However, rain starts to fall and wipes out any chance of blading.

The blade will cut through a wet surface, even a damp one, very efficiently, but the fact is that the resulting mass of bladed material will very soon clump together and make subsequent blading and grading very difficult.

By the time we make it down to turn 1 the extent of our problems with the now infamous “Blunsdon abyss” become clear. At the very place where the bikes are revving at their highest, where the riders throw the back end of their machines sideways to start the turn, rivulets of water have etched out mini canyons across the track. Each rivulet emanates from the greyhound track and flows under the kickboards. As it flows it brings with it small deposits of sand, a material guaranteed to stop a track surface binding properly. The areas of weakness are clear. Just how we are going to cope with them is not so clear. Gerald makes a suggestion, which could not possibly be broadcast, about “dogs”.

We “trudge through sludge” as Wilfred Owen put it in “Dulce et Decorum Est” back to the workroom and set about repairing the damage to the door.

Punch keeps up our spirits with stories of track exploits and disasters from the past. Of the brand new water tanker being driven onto the track for the first time only to be steered directly over an abandoned and up turned rake, the back tyres being punctured and the machine subsiding slowly on its way back to the pits. Of wheels falling off various tractors, trailers etc at embarrassing times (in front of a packed grandstand prior to a meeting.)

He also retells the story of when the man known as the “Main Dane”, Mr Hans Nielsen, mislaid his sense of humour at the starting gate. Well known for being a rather particular starter, Mr Nielsen spent a considerable amount of time one meeting preparing or, as it is termed, “gardening” at the gate. Punch, who had meticulously prepared a deep track to thwart Nielsen’s chances, was so infuriated with the fuss that was being made that he marched onto the track and presented Nielsen with shovel. “If you’re going to be doing the …….. gardening so thoroughly you might as well do it with the right ……. tool!”

There is nothing left to do. At least the thieves didn’t take our TV. We rig up an old aerial that Punch has found. While Gerald tries to tune it, I wander around the work room with said aerial in hand looking like the Statue of Liberty. We get a picture but no sound. Punch and I try to lip read but it doesn’t work well.

We pack up our things and depart. Next week it will be better. It has to be better. I just hope that the diesel those b……ds took will seize their engines and that the jet washer kicks back and knocks out their teeth when they try to start it. I also hope that the freezer and its macabre contents are gone by next week.