The Blunsdon Blog

Important news about the Blunsdon Blog

2007-06-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

Pressure of having to write and update both versions of the Blunsdon Blog have meant that I will no longer be posting accounts on this site.

The all colour version will continue to be updated, usually each Sunday. Click on this link to access the all colour version and then make sure you bookmark the site - the actual web address is a real pain to keep typing into your browser!

Blog is back up and running

2007-06-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

Remember ... the full blog is accessed by clicking this link.

After a torrid time battling with a failing computer (now fixed) the blog is back up to date. Latest offerings on the colour blog include :

A rainy, overcast day nearly puts the lid on our match against Reading ...

An account of the blog's visit to Cowley Stadium, Oxford.

Moore the Merrier ... Andy Moore uses an early morning practice session at Blunsdon to improve his starting technique prior to the match against Lakeside ... and scoops Man of the Match!

In the next couple of days we will be recording "The best decision I never made ..." as said by Terry Russell.

Floodier and floodier ...

2007-05-13T01:40:00.000-07:00

Special message for our esteemed promoter, Rosco. Place the mouse on this sentence and press the left hand button twice in quick succession and you'll be magically whisked to the all colour version of the blog!

Wet, wet, wet ... and love is not all around us!

The Blog has been harping on for some time about the need for rain, and we got it in good measure on Thursday when the wet stuff prevented us from running a meeting against our old foes from down the M4, Oxford. It's our first rain off of the season. So that you don't get too down through the lack of action, or the massive inaction, that was Blunsdon on 10th May, the blog is bringing you exclusive pictures and text from our first "Blunsdon Blog Boys" trip of 2007 - to Perry Bar, home of the newly fledged Birmingham Brummies.

But more of that later.

It had been raining throughout the night and the weather forecast was dire. Punch and Gerald were ensconced in the portals of our luxurious staff room discussing the recent televised match from Blunsdon when I arrived. After an uplifting cup of coffee we ventured forth to inspect the track.

Apart from some puddling of water on turn three and a little surface water just prior to the start line we were pleasantly surprised by the state of the track. Certainly we could get a meeting under way if there weren't substantial amounts of rain on the horizon. While they graded and packed the surface I inflated the air fences, hitched them up to the safety fence, hooked up the green netting and spent a little time checking fuel and oil in each air pump.

By 11 o'clock we were beginning to feel the first signs of rain in the air. The track looked good, the fences were all up and were being cleaned by Mick and Roy, while Brian Cox had erected (he'll love that choice of word!) his advertising hoardings.

Recent high winds had displaced a small section of the new fascias in the pits so Steve Masters was soon on hand to repair and replace. Rosco arrived. Together we prepared a new harrow for the track - a very useful piece of steel reinforcing sheet which can dry out and smooth a wet track quite efficiently.

The clouds were looming by the time that Stan Potter arrived to sort out the starting tapes and soon we were rushing for cover as the serious rain arrived.

It rained and it rained (it got "floodier and floodier" as Piglet has it in "Winnie the Pooh and a rainy day".

Rumour had it that Ceefax already had the fixture down as cancelled at lunchtime. We knew it would be off but we had to wait for Terry Russell, Rosco and the Oxford promotion to agree to call it off before we could do anything else.

While Gerald and Punch took the opportunity for a little light blading and some heavy grading and harrowing, Adam (he'd just arrived straight from work), Roy and I began to dismantle the air fence.

By four o'clock the sun was beginning to come out but the damage had been done. By 5 it was pouring down - the right decision had been reached.

In fact, the constant rain should do us good - the water will penetrate deep down into the base and should bind the whole surface together. The light blading (we didn't want to risk the heavy blade incase we were caught out by really heavy rain and the entire track ruined) and grading should have evened out some of the bumps that were appearing in the track when it was bone dry.

Why wait to blade until the track is wet? One, the dry surface is so hard the blade would probably break before any good could be done. Two, blading a dry track turns the surface to useless dust and pulls great chunks out of the surface, thus rendering it rougher than before. Three, the wet shale cuts much better (like soft scoop butter as opposed to the hard stuff). Four, the moisture in the track binds the bladed material together really well.

And so to Birmingham, and the new Perry Bar Stadium!

But you need to go to the all colour version of the Blog to see an account of our visit to Birmingham!

Service resumed - with a bit of luck

2007-05-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

Frantic swapping of machines and a very obscure method of connecting to the internet means that the most recent blog is now up and running on the colour site.

To connect and read "Every which way ... you lose!" click on this link.

Thanks for your patience.

Graham

The Law according to Sod

2007-05-03T00:41:00.000-07:00

Multitudinous apologies to everyone reading the blog, or at least attempting to read the colour version of the blog - problems with a local exchange mean that I am unable at present to upload data to the blog relating to the Eastbourne match and also the Sky match televised on Monday against Peterborough.

As soon as localised problems have been resolved I will post both accounts and update this version of the blog.

Many thanks for you perseverance.

Graham

Every which way ... you lose!

2007-04-28T03:33:00.000-07:00

The actual blog for the week ending 28th April will be deliayed to take in the Sky Meeting on Monday when the Blog will hopefully be able to un cover some of the mysteries of Sky's coverage of our beloved sport.

Suffice to say that on Thursday we were on to a loser from mid afternoon onwards. With a track as dry and hard as concrete we needed to water on a regular basis right up until the start of the meeting if we were to get the track into the same condition as it was for last week's sensational meeting against Coventry when passing and repassing took place throughout the night.

Everything was going well until the unexpected arrival of some rain clouds at 3.30pm. No rain - just rain clouds. We rang Eastbourne (raining), Oxford (raining), Newport (raining). It was raining everywhere. If we watered and it rained then the meeting would be off. If we halted watering and it rained then we might be all right. If we halted and is didn't rain then we would have dust and single file processions.

It rained, and we halted, but it didn't rain enough. There was no way we could win! And so the meeting was all right but the dust flared up around heat 8 and we had to water to contain it, but only to contain it. The track was OK but not up to the normal standards we have been setting ourselves.

Anyway, I'm off to see Deep Purple at Wembley tonight (Saturday) so expect to be both deaf and traumatised by tomorrow.

An Inspector Calls!

2007-04-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

It's been another scorching day at Blunsdon with no sign of any rain at all. Fortunately the supplies of water are topped up and we are able to get on with watering the track very early indeed, just after the fences have been inflated and while Mick Richards is still cleaning them with his pressure washer.

At this stage in the morning all we were concerned about was getting water through the top racing surface and into the base in the hope that the two would bind properly.

What we weren't expecting was the imminent arrival of Speedway Control Bureau track inspector, Colin Meredith, who was to carry out a full inspection prior to the crunch meeting with early season pace setters, Coventry.

To read more about the latest exploits at the Abbey Stadium click on this link for the all colour version of the Blunsdon Blog!

Easter Madness and a mad search for water!

2007-04-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

Two meetings inside a week - a bonus edition of the blog can be accessed here via this link.

We battle with the elements (Global Warming included) to get the track ready for two meetings over the Easter period.

For a glimpse behind the scenes you'll need to use the link above to access the latest blog - more pictures, more deathless prose and more eccentric spelling!

Welcome to the Costa del Blunsdon - sunny days!

2007-04-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

Remember that the colour blog can be accessed through this link.

And the sun shone down on the righteous and it was good.

It's been a beautiful week for the sun seekers in the Costa del Blunsdon this week, but not so for track staff trying to prepare a racing surface.

On Saturday Dave, Punch and I tried out our new generator / pressure washer combination.

The last generator didn't quite have the muscle to power the leviathan of a pressure washer we have been given. The new generator, whilst not exactly brand spanking new, would, we were assured, have the power required. We hitched up the system to Punch's trailer and ventured out onto the centre green. And lo, the generator did start. And lo, the pressure washer did cough into life. And lo, the water did power from the nozzle. Dave was given the vital job of ensuring that the hose didn't kink, Punch drove his car with the trailer attached and I blasted off the kickboards ... that is when the water pressure from the mains allowed. Sadly, our progress was slowed dramatically as we had to wait for the mains pressure to build up after each section of kickboarding.

However, with the boards sparkling clean, and the prospect of a fresh coat of paint for each one, we settled down to grading and tyre packing in preparation for the Thursday clash with our old friends from down in the South coast at Poole.

We assemble at the track on Thursday at 8.30am. Punch and Gerald have been there since before 8am but I cannot be bothered with such an early start. Dave (it's his Easter holiday so he's roped in to work) and I meet up with Adam Laws and Brian Cox. The sun is already out and the track is drying fast.

The first task is to get the air pumps out to the four corners and then inflate the fence and hook up the green catch fencing. This allows Mick to pressure wash the fence as early as possible so that the excess water and detergent can be dissipated as quickly as possible. While Mick washes Dave, Adam and I hook up the air fence to the safety fence.

Each section of the fence must be attached to the safety fence in at least two places. We use metal hooks for this purpose. By the time that all of the panels have been hitched up and the fence is fully inflated it is 10am. Our next job is to put the large removable sections of safety fence in place. These allow the greyhound operation to move their starting gates into position quickly and easily during dog meetings. The closures are awkward sections and it takes a combination of guile and brute strength to get them securely in place.

The track looks in a sensational state but we have to make sure that it is watered regularly to prevent the surface from drying. Because the speedway track is basically clay it does dry and become brittle very quickly indeed. It is the water content that allows the materials to bind and this binding is essential if all of our hard work is not to disappear in a brown cloud over the northern fringes of Swindon come race one.

Because we have been so diligent in preparing the track at the end of the previous Thursday and on the previous Saturday and because the weather forecast does not suggest any nasty surprises in the way of showers, we have time between waterings to turn our attentions to the number of other jobs that need doing around the track.

One real pain in the neck is the greyhound gate that was installed across the pit entrance last year. Before each meeting we have to carefully remove it and then put it back again at the end of the night. The trouble is that it is very heavy and the mountings make the job not only difficult but potentially hazardous - just ask Punch! He nearly lost half of a finger when the gate trapped his digit as he attempted to fix it in place in semi darkness one night.

The solution is simple and typical of the type of work that we have to do. You need to be a master of many crafts to become a track curator. Punch is the master of the angle grinder whilst Gerald is a mean welder.

Punch grinds of the bottom hinge and then Gerald turns it through 180 degrees and welds it back in place. Now we simply have to lift the gate in and out of position rather than having to adjust two sets of bolts. We've been promising ourselves this modification but have never had the time nor inclination to get it done thus far.

One of the pleasures of working at the the track is the comings and goings of various members of staff who help out and bring their own characters to the work they do.

Brian Cox, affable and relaxed is there first thing to get the advertising hoardings in place. Bob, who lokks after the air pumps and other things mechancial is also present. He is followed in by genial Mick Richards from the Swindon Pressure Washing Company. Mick is great fan of the sport and enjoys swapping stories with Punch about stars from bygone days. Shirley appears to make the tea and clean out the changing rooms and pit areas. She's friendly and takes good care of us.

By mid morning Stan Potter arrives to work on his starting tapes and to check that the 2 minute warning siren and lights are working. Steve Gobey will put in an appearance after lunch to check on the electrics before Rex appears to put up the programme boards in the pits.

Coordinating all of this endeavour is Gerald. As I've said before, Gerald is a perfectionist and sets very high standards for himself and his staff. He is constantly in demand on the telephone yet manages to keep an eye on all that is going on. I've worked for managers before who have barked at staff and brought about widespread resentment. Don't get me wrong - if you make a mistake that was brought about through carelessness, Gerald will pretty soon let you know about it, but he does so in a fair manner and we know that it is his attention to detail that makes the team work so efficiently.

After he has made some more modifications to the small watering truck we settle down to the quiet spell of the afternoon. The air pumps have been switched off, after being thoroughly checked over first, and the watering of the track is being monitored carefully. The riders begin to appear - today Mads Korneliussen is first.

While we have our afternoon cuppa, Mads and his mechanic begin to unload his bikes and then start to warm them up. Alun Rossiter appears. He's suffering from a heavy cold but gets little sympathy from the assembled group.

Seba Ulamek arrives soon after. Ever the gentleman, he makes a point of coming around to all the track staff and shaking our hands, asking each of us how we are. He is a delightful chap and the ultimate professional - his bikes are immaculate and he knows that a little thanks goes a long way - Seba is a top bloke as far as we are concerned.

A speedway bike is so simple and yet so beautiful. Mads is looking forward to the delivery of a new engine but the one that he's got - a GM with the name "Karger" on the side - looks pretty impressive.

But we can't afford to spend all of our time talking with the team members - the sun is still unseasonably warm and the track is drying quickly. We water again, using a heavy spray from the back of the water tanker. The track is temporarily awash with water. We need this so that at least some will penetrate down to the base and keep that moist and firmly bound.

By half four it is time to rip the starting area and the exits of turns two and four. The Swindon lads like a lot of grip from the start and we rip the insides of the exit to 2 and 4 to encourage plenty of drive out of the corners and open up more passing opportunities. As soon as the ripper has opened up the top half inch of shale we pack it down lightly with the smallest tractor and then water it lightly to help it bind again.

The watering from now on until the start of the meeting will be done with a light spray that is sufficient to keep the top surface in place and tight.

At six other track staff appear. Mick Hunt, our Clerk of the course, and his assistant Andrew Reynolds are in attendance. The pits are full of riders, mechanics, team officials, sponsors et al. The referee does his inspection and the two sets of riders and management do their track walks, digging away at the surface and muttering about too much grip, too little grip, too much water, too little water etc.

We now keep our distance. Tractors are put in place, air pumps started and primed with fuel and oil, official overalls put on. We inflate the sir fence and attach the last section of the jig-saw, the section that covers the pits gates.

Gerald and Punch water lightly just one more time.

The crowd is huge, so large that not only do we run out of programmes but we also have to enlist the use of a temporary car park to accommodate all of the cars. Bizarrely and almost grotesquely the area fenced off around the burial ground is used as an overflow car parking area. The jokes fly - "they'll be using a skeleton car park crew ... it's the dead centre of the car park ... we have grave car parking concerns at Swindon."

And so to the meeting. We are without two key members of our track staff through illness and so it's literally all hands to the pump. The racing is fast and furious - two of the early heats are won in times under 66 seconds - a sure sign that the track is riding fast. The Pirates seem to be adapting to the racing conditions better than the Robins although Leigh Adams informs us that the track is perfect - the Robins just aren't riding it that well.

The surface is cutting up but at the speeds that the riders are achieving allied to the power of their machines, it's no more than we can expect.

I had made a comment to someone earlier that it had been a fairly straightforward day!
I should have kept my mouth closed.

The sheer weight of material that is being thrown up against the fence is pulling the kickboards away from the fence in some places and the track staff are finding it difficult to keep up with the task of bringing the material back down onto the racing line in between races. I make some running repairs but it is difficult to see what you're doing and there's always the danger that an errant grading tractor will come your way - will they see you?

Then disaster strikes. Gerald calls me over and tells me that the air fence on turn one appears to be deflating. I find that the air pump has packed in and tell Adam to get the spare. The referee is informed and the red lights go on. Richard Crowley, our announcer, informs the crowd that racing is temporarily halted while the problem with the air fence is sorted. There's plenty of fuel and the oil is OK but the damn thing just refuses to run. A calm head is needed; such a shame that mine isn't at this time! Fortunately Adam arrives with replacement, which starts and runs perfectly. Phew!

Bob, who services the engines, arrives and together we check the original over. We can only assume that some of the shale and dust thrown through the green catch netting has got into the engine and seized it.

I return to the pits to find that there is a concern about the pressure in the air fence on turn 3.

The fences are designed to let air out along the seams so that they don't inflate like balloons. There is consequently always the hissing of escaping air but our concern is that a patch has come adrift and rather too much air is rushing out. Gerald and I try to glue the patch back in place - the glue seems to work well on my fingers but less so on the fence material. The air continues to rush out while I appear to be resolutely stuck in place. We do our best to stem the flow and the meeting comes to an end with a classic last heat decider.

Swindon win by two points but our feeling is a more a case of "Thank God it's over!"

After a series of junior races and one or two Robins trying out new engines, we put the track to bed and are away from the track by just after 11pm.

Punch and I will be back at 7am on Saturday to inflate the fence so that Mick can wash it at 8am. Why the early start? Mick has lots of other work to do; Punch is eager to get across to Kings Lynn to support Leigh and Seba in the Pairs Championship; and we have an Easter Sunday meeting with Reading and need to get as much done on the Saturday as possible.

I can hardly wait!

I'm glad I'm a speedway fan

2007-04-01T04:59:00.000-07:00

This is a first for this blog ... this article / tirade will not appear on the colour version of the blog because it is not specifically about track preparation at a speedway track. Rather, it is about the relative experiences of being a speedway fan and attending a football match.

After a morning preparing the track at Blunsdon with Punch, Gerald and my 12 year old son, David, he and I set off for the centre of Swindon with the aim of watching my beloved Shrewsbury Town take on the local might of Swindon Town in a top of the table (well, almost top of the table) clash at the County Ground in Swindon.

I'm not a great football fan but I do retain my affections for the Shrews - I used to be a regular at The Gay Meadow when I was at school in Shropshire in the late 60's and early 70's. As I've tried to impart to David, I believe that you should really continue supporting your old home team no matter how dire the situation may become, and let's face it, being a Shrews fan has been a little taxing over the years, what with the drop into the Conference a few years ago.

But I digress! Before I go any further, let me make it quite clear that I understand some of the concerns that football stadia and their staff have in managing crowds that, even at Division 2 level, are in excess of Speedway crowds. I also understand that All Seater Stadiums are probably a good idea. Having said that, what we had to endure was beyond the acceptable.

First I was surprised at the price of tickets for the match - we're not talking about top quality here. £20 for me and £9 for Dave. That's quite a hole in the budget, especially when the £2.50 programme (well presented and perfectly acceptable) was concerned. No wonder football is crying out for more fans to attend the lower eschelons of the professional game.

Ticket in hand we made our way into the ground and up through the stairs to the main stand. At the top of the stairs a post pubescent youth with an apology for a moustache told us, in no uncertain terms, that we had to sit up the back of the stand - even though there were oceans of empty seats near the front. £20 - good seats? No! We were herded with all the other Shrews fan into the top of the main stand right at the end (our seats were in line with the goal line - a line incidentally crossed by the ball in the final minutes when Shrewsbury should have been awarded an equaliser by the referee and his assistant).

I pointed out the lack of bodies in the front 15 rows and that the area where he was directing us was already rather full, but the callow youth would have none of it. Only when we were packed in like sardines were some fortunates allowed to sit closer to the touchline.

Now I accept that some groups of fans have a bad name but the Shrewsbury fans didn't strike me as being the type of hooligans that once gave English football such a bad name. We were now being watched by numerous fluorescent jacketed stewards.

Pre match entertainment was provided by a local presenter and a local radio "personality". Banal pushes the meaning of the word and it was a relief all round when they departed and allowed the players to take over. A perfectly presented minute's silence in memory of a local fan who had lost his life recently suggested that this would be a good natured affair.

But no. No sooner had the match begun than stewards were being sent into the excited Shrews fans to tell them to sit down. Fact - we were well on top and playing some good football! Fact - when you're excited you tend to stand. Fact - the Swindon faithful behind the goal at the far end of the pitch were all standing!

A confrontation in the back row. A steward is now arguing with a man and his young son. Their crime? They are standing up. It's the back row for God's sake! They're doing no one any harm. They are not a threat to our safety, nor to anyone else's. When you have paid so much money and are being treated like a kind of animal it's not surprising that feelings run high.

We continue to sing and chant - it's a good atmosphere and there's not the hint of any trouble apart from the intervention of the stewards.

During half time we look forward to some interesting and informative entertainment. Unlikely that a player would venture an interview but perhaps someone from the back room staff would give us an insight into what is happening at the club and elsewhere in the league. But no - more utterly inane trivia as we are exhorted to applaud and cheer various unremarkable on field activities as if we were watching the first four minute mile.

During the second half the Shrews let slip their goal lead and slide to their first defeat in 3 months . We continue to sing and the banter is good natured and non threatening.

At the end of the match we try to leave the stand. The exit to the steps is wide enough for two people and there is not the nearest hint of pushing or anti social behaviour. Guess what. Said youth in coloured jacket stands resolutely at the top of the stairs making sure that we leave in single file. We are made to feel like school kids.

The "Beautiful Game"? Not if you're an away fan! One thing is certain, I'll not be back at the County Ground again until the Shrews visit in the future. It was an unpleasant and expensive exercise made so by the footballing authorities. Oh, and the next time I feel the need to vent my fury at a speedway referee I will remember the abysmal way that the officials handled this game - behind the play and with little or no feel for the game. And the players (and I'll include the Shrews lads here), falling to the ground and writhing as if hit but a thunderbolt - get a life, or get an Equity Card! If speedway riders reacted like that they'd be laughed out of the stadium.

Thank God for speedway. I'm a speedway fan. I like to stand and watch. I like to talk to fans from other clubs. I like the good natured banter. I like stewards who steward and not those who dictate. I like sportsmen who get on with the job and don't act like second rate soap stars.

Rant over. Normal Blog will resume on Thursday when Poole come a visiting.

Pneumatic tyres and graders don't mix!

2007-03-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

Click here for the all colour version of the Blunsdon Blog.

Punch and I pitched up early for work on Saturday morning. There had been no rain since last Thursday and the track looked in great shape. We had spent a long time preparing and repairing the track on Thursday and that hard work looked to have paid dividends.

Our first job was to clean as much shale off the kickboards and then away from the boards as possible. It is impossible to get the baldes right up to the kickboards without running the danger of ripping the boards out. This means that shale builds up alongside the boards and needs to be removed manually.

There is moisture in the surface of the track so we decide to regrade and then pack it firmly once we have finished top dressing areas of the track where damage has been done.

We distribute new shale at the entrance to turn 1, through turns 1 and 2, on the entrance to turn 3 and by the start gate. It's warm work on a fresh spring morning.

If we can pack this new material down thoroughly it will stand a chance of binding with the base if there is moisture in the air between now and the next meeting against the Lakeside Hammers this Thursday.

The major packing work will be done with the big water tanker. Avid readers will know that I was taught how to drive the tanker last week. They will also appreciate how amzed I was that Punch should trust me for a second week behind the wheel of the leviathon.

Even half empty, the tanker is extremely heavy and, as Punch gradesand smooths the surface I begin to work from the outside of the track inwards to the white line. The harder we can pack, the more water will run off the surface in the event of rain and the better the chance of the new material binding. We circulate for the best part of an hour, by which time Adam Laws has turned up.

We turn our attention to the ugly scars across the centre green left by the excavations of the archaeologists. Punch grades and I pack and then he grades and I pack and soon the surface looks to be flat enough for the scattering of some grass seed in the next couple of weeks. The burial site behind the pits is now almost entirely surrounded by boarding, presumably to keep prying eyes away when the bodies are uncovered. It might also be used to keep Sky Presenters out when they search for yet more ancient anecdotes for the Monday live fixture.

And then disaster strikes. Deflated ... I should say so. Whilst trying to manoeuvre the tanker into a tight parking space behind the pits I knick the front driver's tyre on the corner of an errant grader. It deflates with an awful hissing sound. I am distraught - Gerald will murder me.

Punch appreciates my concern and relates a story about when he punctured the rear tyre of a lorry he was driving. Determined to discover the cause of the puncture he stopped the lorry and reveresed back, puncturing another tyre in the process!

Thursday 29th March - Race Day
The weather forecast looked to be against us with showers coming in on a regular basis from the west and there had been some overnight rain in the area. However, the track looked in fine condition when I arrived at 8.45 on Thursday. Roy Hicks was already there although there was no sign of Gerald or Punch. I’ve taken to bringing a lap top to the track with DVDs of recent Sky meetings to keep us entertained. Once that has been set up in our rest room Roy and set off in search of the terrible twins!

The air fences are already partly inflated in readiness for Mick Richards and his pressure cleaning unit. When we find them Gerald and Punch are both in good humour.

“Morning Graham! Feeling deflated or depressed this morning? Or are you tyred? We don’t want to puncture your dreams. Have we taken the wind out of your sails, or tyres?” The barrage of cruel puns continues, referring to my faux pas when I punctured a tyre on the water tanker at the weekend. Brian Cox, John Nobbs and Shirl enjoy the banter. Apparently John managed to run over a rake within minutes of the tanker being delivered. The result was the same! There is a really good feel to the team, and that is important; there are times when everything gets tense and the elements turn against you so a team spirit is valuable.

I help Brian Cox to carry the advertising A boards out on the centre green. Last year we had two small vans from one of our sponsors; they were perfect for carrying air pumps, advertising A frames etc. around. This year we have lost them so my Peugeot is used to carry air pumps and other heavy items around. Brian and I now have to carry the frames out. They’re not heavy but in a sharp wind they do tend to take on the aspect of a sail. One of these days we’ll take off and will be last seen disappearing over the horizon. While Roy hangs the green catch netting on turns 3 and 4 I set to hanging the netting on turns 1 and 2.

By half nine all of the air fence and catch fencing is in place. Punch and I put the safety fence inserts into place. We have three areas of safety fence that are removable so that the greyhound starting gates can be moved in and out during dog meetings. Mick has arrived and, with Roy, is setting up the pressure cleaner. The air fence has to be washed with warm water mixed with detergent and then rinsed with cold water. It’s important that the minimum of water is used – too much and we get a boggy area near the fence that’s virtually impossible to drain.

Punch, Gerald and I turn our attention to the problem of pressure washing the white line and the boards. We’ve been given a pressure washer, a large industrial one that runs off mains electricity and heats water via a diesel powered heater. There is no chance of running a cable out to the unit when we’re out on the centre green so a new generator has been provided for us. We suspect that the gleaming little generator is a little to small to power the jet washer but we are forever hopeful.

Gerald has found the wheeled unit that was used when the wonderwheel was delivered. We decide that, with a few minor modifications, this could be made into a pretty decent wheeled platform that could accommodate washer and generator while being pulled around by a tractor.

Punch cuts up some steel with an angle grinder – he doesn’t immediately get the inadvertent joke – “Have you got your old grinder with you today?” – and is temporarily bemused as Gerald and I fall about with laughter. With steel sections cut and the frame marked up with an indelible marker, Gerald sets to with the arc welder.

Punch and I load the pressure washer and the generator onto an old trailer that Punch has brought along. Mick stands back and giggles. He’s sure the generator wont have the b.lls to power the washer. With every derisory comment Punch and I become more determined that the generator will work – let’s face it, if it doesn’t we’re in deep do do!

Out on the track we connect up the main hosepipe and then start the generator. All is well. We smile smugly. We turn on the pressure washer … and the generator stops, the trip switches having tripped at the same time. We check the water supply, we try again, the generator stops and the trips trip. Mick looks on with a self satisfied smirk on his face. Punch mutters beneath his breath – not a happy bunny.

We decide to try plugging the pressure washer into the mains supply near the start gates. Stan Potter, the start marshal is measuring out his tapes, and offers to help. We plug in … and nothing happens. Stan and I trace the mains cable to a circuit breaker switch up in the referee’s box. Punch stomps off disgustedly. All seems well in the box but no signs of life from the washer. After much cursing and the trying out of several combinations of on and off settings Stan and I reach the conclusion that the power box by the start gate is as dead as the proverbial.

When I reach the pits to tell Gerald and Punch of our failure they have already devised a cunningly plan involving a mop, a bucket of detergent, a cleaning brush and a length of hosepipe. Amidst all the glamour and sophistication brought to Elite league speedway over the last few years, the three of us are left with no alternative but to use a mop and bucket to clean the boards. It is a dull and slightly demeaning task, but one that has to be done properly. The shale sticks to the boards with amazing strength. Gerald mops, I brush and Punch tries to blast off the remaining grime with the hosepipe attached to a water pump. By common consensus, the boards still look very ordinary by the time we finish. Gerald even suggests that we might like to paint over some of the more discoloured ones. Punch and I mutter under our breath and secretly question his sanity.

Despite the frustrations of the morning, lunch is a jolly affair. Punch has brought in his trusty sandwich maker – it’s a case of Better the Breville you know! – and a supply of the thickest cut bread and cheese that I’ve ever seen. We even have a table cloth! I must bring in some silver polish to brighten up the cutlery. Gerald and I feast on hot cheese toasted doorsteps while Punch eats a cold Baked Beans sandwich.

Still no sign of the promised rain. The track is looking very smooth but is drying out rather too quickly for our liking. Unless we can get some water into it soon the base will remain bone dry and the dust will appear after the first round of heats. We also need to get some moisture into the newly laid parts of the surface – the top layer will break up otherwise.

Punch and I work our way round the air fences pinning them to the safety fence. The referee will check on the bindings and fixing of the fence prior to the meeting and will include comments on the safety aspect in his report.

Gerald hitches up the Blunsdon Ripper – no not some psychopathic murderer – the device that rips up the surface to give added grip. He rips the start line (our lads like nice grippy start lines) and the exits of turns 2 and 4 on the inside. Once the surface has been ripped it needs to be tyre packed and watered to stop it from breaking up completely. However, all chances of watering are swiftly curtailed by news that a heavy rain band would be depositing its riches all over the stadium at about 4pm.

I take the chance to go round and check the kickboards and the cable ties that keep them in place. I think that the experiment to replace the old rivets with cable ties has been a success so far. Even though I have to replace about 20 ties, mostly broken by the weight of shale that is deposited upon them during a meeting, this is still much faster than replacing 10 rivets.

While I have been away from the pits the riders and their entourages have started to appear. Other track staff are arriving and a group set about putting out the boards on the greyhound track where the tractors drive. Like the parting of the Red Sea in biblical times, the dark, looming rain clouds pass on either side of the stadium and not a drop is deposited upon the hallowed shale. With two hours to go to the start of the meeting we have to take a calculated risk and water the track. Failure to do so now would be disastrous for good racing later in the evening. Riders appear at the pits gate and then furtively move onto the track, digging into the surface with the toes of their shoes. At this stage they’re not really supposed to be on the track; track staff are still working and Health and Safety demands that riders and track staff should not be working at the same time on the racing surface.

While one rider believes we should flood the track now another thinks it looks fine. Another believes that there is too much dirt on the track, his colleague would like more. You cannot please all of the riders all of the time. Gerald adopts the approach that if Terry (Russell) and he are happy then all is well. Terry is happy because it now looks as if there is no threat to the meeting and Gerald, while a little concerned that the moisture has not reached the base in sufficient quantities, is a satisfied man.

I remove the greyhound gate and then make sure that the water tankers are all filled to the brim. I also check on each of the air pumps to make sure that they have sufficient fuel for the evening and that a full petrol can and a funnel is placed on each of the corners. Bob, air pump and starting gate supremo, is a great help, especially when one of the air pumps cuts out intermittently. Apparently each pump contains a very small oil reservoir. When the oil level drops below the permitted level the pumps cuts out. We bring out a reserve pump just in case.

The riders have completed their track walk so we venture out to repair the gardening that has taken place at crucial parts of the track and then seek a few minutes rest in the rest room with a cup of coffee and a sandwich. This is the quiet before the storm – there is little we can do but wait for the referee’s comments and the start of the meeting. Mick Hunt, Clerk of the Course, reports that the ref., Tony Steele, has found that one clasp on an air bag is missing. It’s a minor problem and one we can manage easily. Considering how big the Abbey Stadium track is, we are delighted that he has had to work so hard to find a minor problem.

Tractors and track equipment are removed from the track and parked alongside the pits. The parade begins and the pits fall silent. We’re one or two track staff short this evening so arrangements have to be made to ensure the correct numbers of rakers and flag marshals are on each corner.

Punch, Gerald and I find a place to watch the first heat. Adams and Chrzanowski roar to a fine 5 – 1. The racing looks to be good and fast, although the lads from Lakeside are outpaced. As the reserves come out Leigh Adams come across for a chat with Gerald. He’s happy, and so we’re happy.

One of the problems with having so much dirt on a track is the need to pull it back into place at the end of the each race. The lack of moisture in the surface means that a vast amount of dryish shale is shifted out to the fence – fortunately there is no dust! I join the staff on turn 3. The rakes are unnecessarily heavy. They do a job but I’m soon building up a good sweat. The top surface does begin to break up but it does so quite evenly and nobody gets out of shape. Times are uniformly fast and the large crowd are obviously delighted as the Robins hammer (sorry about the pun) out a series of maximum heat wins. It’s particularly pleasing to see that, when the Robins don’t make the gate, they are choosing inside and outside lines on each corner to eat into any Lakeside advantage and the number of overtakes, whilst not vast, are acceptable.

Gerald and Robert Nobbs drive the tractors round, Robert with a small blade which pulls the shale back towards the white line, and Gerald initially with the wonderwheel to fluff up the surface and latterly the mesh to even out the coverage of the shale over the base of the track.

At the end of the main meeting I spend my time trying to dig out the massive amounts of dry material that are lying against the kickboards on the back straight. In this way I hope that we can get as much material regraded as possible. Three junior races prolong our agony – it’s getting rather cold now and we all want to get started putting the track to bed.

When the referee calls an official end to the meeting we start the hard work all over again. Gerald, with the blade and the harrow, drags back as much material from the fence as possible while Punch performs a series of perfectly formed “doughnuts” with the grader. This latter process, straight out of “Come Dancing” is the perfect way of repairing the corners at the end of a meeting. While they continue with their tractor work, other staff have turned off the air pumps and have started to remove the green netting and take out the pins that attach the air fence to the safety fence.

My task is to collect the air pumps and return them, together with the pins and the petrol paraphernalia to the lock up. I use the car to fetch the pumps from the bottom end of the track. When they have been retrieved I hitch the tyre packing wheels to the small tractor. The light that is supposed to illuminate the area behind the pits has failed and trying to hook up the tyre packer in the dark is a test for more temperament as much as for my dexterity. The arrival of the tyre packer is always a cue for laughter and derision – it squeaks appallingly! Having parked it one the centre green, I return to collect the air pumps from turns three and four.

The track is looking very good now. Gerald has pinched my tractor and is tyre packing. At least he now appreciate how cold I get in the open topped tractor and how that squealing sound gets to you after a lap or two.

Punch and I re-attach the greyhound gate. The stadium is empty now, apart from those hardy folk inside the main bars.

10.40pm and we are ready to lock up. Quite how we’ve managed to pack up so quickly is anyone’s business. We have one last cup of coffee before making our respective ways home. Punch is to meet up with Gerald at Lakeside tomorrow night. He leaves to collect his wife from the main stand. Gerald is preparing for another marathon midnight journey down to Thurrock so that he can start on the Arena Essex (Lakeside) track at first light in preparation for the return fixture on Friday night. My journey back to Malmesbury is a mere 18 miles.

We will meet up on Saturday to finish the work on the track. My son, David, assures me he will help out. As a reward I am offering him a burger meal for lunch and then a chance to see the mighty Shrewsbury Town as they come visiting the County Ground in Swindon for a Division 2 promotion contender.

Oh, and the lack of photos? My daughter laid her claim to the camera on Thursday so she could record a trip to a classical concert in London. I could have put up a defence but two major factors accounted for my meek, “Oh, all right” as I handed over the camera – one, she would have hit me and, two, it is her camera!

Reasons to be cheerful ... Part 2

2007-03-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

A small reminder - the all colour version of the blog can be found via this link.

First of all, allow me a little self indulgence. The photograph in the colour blog is of young Adam Laws. Adam is a member of the track staff at Swindon and gets up to Blunsdon on a Thursday whenever work and college timetables allow.

Adam's been training to become a motor mechanic and we were all delighted to hear that he has passed his final examination with flying colours and is now a fully qualified mechanic! Well done!

We managed to get a lot of track preparation completed after last week's win over Reading and on Saturday, so we had a little more leeway than usual today in preparation for the night's clash with the Wolves.

Bob, he of the starting gate system and the maintenance of the air pumps, helped me to get the pumps out and inflate the fences so that Mick Richards could pressure wash them. Roy Hicks then helped me to clip the green catch netting in place.

Adam, Punch and I then started on the cleaning of boards and white lines. First task is to fill the Mowlex (looks like an old slurry tank) with water. We have a motley selection of water containers at Blunsdon and Punch soon demonstrates his climbing techniques to get the pipes in place.

As I drive around slowly Punch and Adam pressure wash the boards and the white line. The boards need to look spick and span - they add greatly to the visual impact - while the white line must be clearly visible all the way round the track, or the referee will become unhappy and report us.

It is amazing how hard it is to dislodge dried shale from the boards and we have to be careful about how much water we use - it's very easy to flood the metre or so of track by the boards and that turns into a Somme like morass very easily.

The drains continue to work well on turns 1 and 2 and there is no noticeable run off from either the grey hound track or the air fence. We also use this opportunity to see how well the new shale that we laid last Saturday has bound with the base. It all looks most satisfactory. Certainly the track feels very hard indeed and that should allow Gerald to work his magic later in the day.

Punch has brought his toasted sandwich maker into work today so we are all treated to piping hot cheese toasties by our resident gourmet. The heat is much appreciated - it's a bit on the chilly side this morning.

He's very proud of his offerings. Subtle, they may not be, but tasty they certainly are.

A closer inspection of the photograph reveals an uncanny resemblance to Pop Eye and I cannot resist the opportunity to do a little cutting and enlarging to bring you the full effect.

Inevitably talk turns to track matters and the performances of the Robins in their home and away victories against our old foes from down the M4 in Reading. Having seen the Sky coverage of the Reading and Peterborough clashes earlier this week we can't help but feel confident that, injuries aside, we stand a very good chance of bringing home some silverware this season.

Talking of injuries, can I say, on behalf of everyone in the Track Staff at Swindon, how sad and shocked we were when news came through of the serious injuries sustained by Mark Loram at Ipswich. I have yet to meet anyone who has anything other than praise for our 2000 World Champion. "Get well soon mate!"

While we go about our everyday tasks we notice some strange building work going on in the field adjacent to the pits. Rumours abound! Is it Blundson's answer to Stonehenge? Is it a satellite tracking station? Have the Martians arrived?

Has someone discovered the remains of an original set of Barry Briggs leathers?
Most popular is that the posts in the ground represent the outline of the new stadium at Swindon - OK, so it's in the wrong place, but who cares. Sadly our hopes are dashed when Swindon Supremo Terry Russell arrives in this rather smart car. The new stadium will be on the other side of the existing one, alongside the new A419, and these posts are being put up to fence in an ancient burial ground while the bones are dug up and moved to another spot. Some of the bones buried there are very old indeed - some might even be older than the Tony Millard book of anecdotes and wisdom that he trots out during the Sky coverage of speedway matches.

I turn my attention to the much abused and largely ignored Junior Pits. We will have to use them this year so Adam and I remove the old air fence panels, advertising hoardings, bits of detritus etc. and stack them elsewhere. The design and placement of these pits is remarkable.

Not only have they been sited below the level of the main pits, the floor of the Junior Pits is actually lower than the surrounding ground. The result is that water, sand and mud / slime from everywhere pours into these pits and lurks in fetid pools. I dig a small drainage hole carefully - there are live electricity cables buried nearby - yes we even have electricity here in the wilds of Wiltshire!

Not only do we have electricity, we also have underground and overhead cables. Quite what the spaghetti like mass of overhead wiring does is beyond me, and probably everyone else concerned with the stadium, but some of the cables are hanging rather too limply for the liking of the Health and Safety Officer. Last week we had to rope off a section of the grass banking on turn 4 in case someone reached up and grabbed themselves a few thousand volts. Punch, who else, knows someone who can put in some new telegraph poles. A giant augur arrives and the holes are made and poles erected. I will not sully the reputation of the Blundson Blog by recalling the various comments about it being the biggest erection we'll see and probably the best screw!

Gerald has been out on the track with the ripper to rip up the starts and also the exits of turns 2 and 4. The ripped areas are tyre packed but should produce plenty of grip and drive for the riders. Talking of riders, the vans start to appear from 4.30pm onwards. It's a strange time for the track staff because there's not a lot to do apart from watch the clouds and pray that the mist that is enveloping the stadium will not turn to rain and ruin all of our work.

I take a while to check the air fences and the kickboards. As we suspected, a number of the cable ties that we used to attach the rubber kickboards to the bottom of the air fence have broken and need replacing. The ref is also concerned that some of the green netting is flapping on turns 1 and 2.

Mick Hunt, Clerk of the Course, goes about his pre meeting checks but takes time to pose for a photo for the blog, alongside Dave, on half of the DaVinci boys.

Start Marshals Stan Potter and Mike Saunders check with Assistant Clerk of the Course, Andrew Reynolds that everything is ready. The roar of the bikes shatters any possible calm that we may be feeling.

I've noticed that, during their track walk, some of the riders have been over zealous in their digging - great chunks of the top surface have been gouged out by errant boots. It is especially galling that much of this gardening has been carried out on areas we have repaired since last week and on the entrances to turns 1 and 3. I accept that they need to check for levels of grip but it is the same gardeners who will complain of ruts in the first two heats - ruts they made themselves!

With heat 1 a matter of minutes away I meet up with our Christmas Quiz winner, Malcolm Gough and present him with the signed copy of Jeff Scott's latest literary masterpiece, "When Eagles Dared". Malcolm is a staunch supporter of the Blog - the phrase, get a life Malcolm, springs briefly into my mind. I've invited Malcolm to pen a piece about being on the terraces during a meeting and hope to be able to feature it here soon! Hint, Hint!

Swindon Supremo Terry Russell beams proudly for the Blog's camera as he looks out upon another bumper crowd. In fairness, the old stadium looks a treat (it's very dark so you can't see the the untidy parts).

Even though Terry claims not to have found the blog yet, there's no chance of any adverse comment from this neck of the woods!

As the meeting gets underway I check the petrol in the air pumps and meet up with an old friend, Neil Wise. Neil is one half of the team that makes up the hugely successful gift and luxury item chain Tattinger Marsh (branches in Marlborough and Cirencester). It is Neil who actually hosts the Blog website - thanks mate!

Space is against me so I'll sign off here. We get away from the track relatively early - at 11.10pm. I'll feature post match work in a subsequent blog.

Oh, and the result. A Swindon win but none of us have time to check the actual score.

The start of the new campaign at Swindon

2007-03-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

For the full colour Blunsdon Blog remember to click on this link.

OK. Hands up! The blog is late. There is no excuse .... really.

In an attempt to keep the blog current and fresh, there is a slight alteration to the style of the blog as it morphs into "The everyday tale of track folk during a speedway season".

The final week of the close season has been manic here, and probably at every speedway track in the country. Our timetable has reflected this.

Saturday we worked from 8am to 2pm.

Sunday (behind closed doors practice) started at 8am and finished late afternoon.

Monday (Press Day) started at 8am and ended at 7pm.

Thursday started at 8am and finished at 11.15pm.

Saturday started at 8am and finished at 1pm.

I sense a feeling of neglect when my children starting asking my wife if I have really left home!
Nevertheless our Monday work starts with a good clearing of the area at the back of the pits.

We decide to line up all of the machinery that we use on the track on one side of the area and set aside the other side for our cars. Punch erects a taped fence in front of our restroom to stop vehicles from blocking us in. As we finish I decide to make a brief record of some of the equipment we use on the track.

The yellow "Wonder wheel" is used to create dirt on the track during the meeting. Complete with 66 metal spikes, the wheel rotates quickly behind a driven tractor and disturbs the surface of the track to help the riders gain much needed grip during the meeting. We don't tend to use the wheel much during preparation - it's main use is during the meeting itself.

The little yellow blade is the subject of some controversy. Punch is adamant that he and an ex Clerk of the Course bought it themselves. Somewhere along the way a promoter added it to his list of equipment and the sold it to the stadium, who now use it on the dog track. It may be very old but it does do a very good job (when we can get our hands on it) and is capable of blading right up to the fence.

Next up is "The Ripper". As its name suggests, this is used to rip the top half inch of the track surface. We use it on the start line (our lads like plenty of grip off the tapes) and on the exits of turns 2 and 4 (to help them power out of the corners).

The red grader is one of the most used pieces of equipment. It has four bars that cut away any ridges on the track and then allow excess shale to fill up holes etc. This us extensively used during the preparation and during meetings.

The riders are due to arrive soon and we work feverishly on the track to make sure that everything is ready for them.

Mick Richards has already been out to pressure wash the air fence and all of the banners have been cleaned. The itinerary is that the riders will arrive late morning and unload their bikes. They will then go up to the Legends' Lounge at Blunsdon for food and a chance to meet with the press.

After their interviews they will return to the pits, get changed and then pose for photos with sponsors and officials of the club. They will then take to the track for their final practice session in front of invited guests and members of the public.

Rico is an early arrival. He is a delightful chap, almost too honest for his own good. He chats with everyone and is absolutely confident that he can put his misfortunes of last year behind him.

As we admire his new bikes a local business man, Andy Nurden, appears. Andy has put his hand in his pocket this year to sponsor Lee. Andy is a great motor sports enthusiast - he's already completed the Paris Dakar rally in a converted fire engine and is an accomplished motor cyclist. It's people like Andy who provide the vital extras that can help turn around Lee's career, and the better tat Lee does, the better the team will do.

In the midst of a packed pits area Rosco, in pristine white Robins shirt, oversees all that goes on. The bikes splutter into life and we are ready for the off - the last practice session. In fact, because they were in Poland on Sunday, the only practice session for both Lee Richardson and Seba Ulamek.

The start line girls appear in their new uniform. One of them, Gemma, is Punch's grand daughter and he is inordinately proud of her. But there are only three girls present - so an unlikely candidate steps forward to fill the void.

We remind Punch that if he wants to be a start line girl he must wear the figure hugging body suit. Gerald, who's listening, makes a gagging sound at the prospect of this happening. Punch, crest fallen, takes the point.

The press swarm out onto the centre green to take team and individual photographs.

There is little that we can do but stand around and wait for the jamboree to finish. We are a little concerned that the fresh wind that blasts across Blunsdon will dry out the surface too much - we don't want a dust bowl, nor do we want to do too much damage to the newly laid track.

It is unfair perhaps to pick out one rider's bikes for special praise but, when Swindon do come to a track near you, try to get a good look at Seba Ulamek's bikes - they are immaculate. The anodised wheels and beautifully carved frame are works of art in themselves.

As the riders take to the track in ones, twos and fours the track staff work feverishly to make sure that the surface stands up. We've spent a long time packing down the holes that appeared on the entrance to turn 1 and at the apex of turns 1 and 2.

Like the other riders Tomasz waits at the pits gate for his turn. Tom's English isn't the best but he is appreciative of our efforts on the track.

Tommy Allen, our number 8, is the first to test the air fence when he picks up too much grip coming out of turn 4. He picks himself, uninjured. Of more importance, the surface wasn't to blame and the air fence is undamaged!

At the end of the session the track staff set to work feverishly, dragging back the enormous amount of dirt back onto the racing lines. The track is graded and tyre packed and the air fence deflated. It's been an exhausting few days and we are all in need of a good rest before the action begins with a season opener against our friends from down the M4, the Reading Bulldogs.

Thursday 15th
This is it - the start of the 2007 speedway season. five months of winter work has all been building up to this. Jeff Scott (Showered in Shale) has joined us for the day to research for a forthcoming publication.

Our first task is to inflate the air fence and put up the green netting (that prevents too much shale from being thrown up onto the dog track). The fence is then attached to the safety fence to lock it in place. Mick Richards pressure washes the fence and the advertising banners. Gerald and Punch work on the track, blading, grading and lightly harrowing the surface. We keep an eye on the weather - rain is forecast so watering has to be carefully considered.

Since the equipment was stolen in the break in we have been without a functioning pressure washed. Mick's pressure washer can't reach the kickboards on the main and back straights so we have to rig up a hired washer. Heath Robinson it certainly is, but it works - thank God for nylon rope and the ingenuity of Punch.

With the fences clean it is now up to us to pack the track down using the small tractor. We must do this in case rain comes. An unpacked track soon turns into a quagmire in a burst of rainfall. With the surface packed and hard at least the rain cannot penetrate the surface and we will be able to cope with the ragings of Jupiter Pluvius!

We have also hired a sit on roller so that we can pack down the newly laid areas on turns 1 and 2. We've dug out masses of sand affected shale and replaced it with new shale. This has been well watered in, to help it bind to the base, and then tyre packed. The larger roller should help firm up the surface. Gerald is smiling for the first time today - he's in his element on the roller - talk about kids and toys!

The track is almost ready. Gerald rips the start line and also the exits of turns 2 and 4. This ripping is then lightly tyre packed. In this case it should hold together but provide loads of grip for the riders.

As the riders start to arrive, at about 4pm, we try to keep out of their way. Inevitably there is talk at the pits entrance. Our lads want to know what the track is like while the opposition's promoter swaps stories with gerald about winter track preparation.

This is a strange period of the day for us. There is little that we can do, and all we want to do is get some shut eye, but we're all too tense to relax. One aspect that I have come to appreciate in my year working with the team is that you feel responsible for the race track. If we haven't done our job properly, or if the weather turns against us, then we are stuffed! We are also very aware that riders' safety is in our hands; we must produce a safe race track for them whilst still encouraging them to take the risks that are part and parcel of the sport.

Punch collapses in his chair in the work room. Like the rest of us, he just wants the meeting to get going.

With the light disappearing and a cold Spring evening enveloping the stadium, the red overalls are donned and we go out to meet up with the race night track staff who have been arriving since 6pm. Bikes are being warmed up and the whole pits area judders with the noise of highly tuned engines. The smell is intoxicating - if you could bottle it it would be the speedway fans ideal Christmas present. The smell may not be so rich as it once was (the synthetic nature of the chemicals has taken away the edge) but it's still a wonderful odour!

The riders climb onto the wagon and make their way to the start line. They are joined by Don Rogers and other glitterati from the 1967 League Cup winning football team, together with the actual trophy. A new link has been forged between the speedway and football clubs in the town.
The pits are an eerie place at this time. Spare bikes stand silently alongside mountainous tool boxes (if only we could lay our hands on on just a few cast off tools to help with our work - it's time like these when the Heath Robinson like solutions that we have to employ to get work done are put firmly into focus).

We're all very pleased to catch a glimpse of Rosco's notes in the programme where he thanks us for our work over the winter break and even mentions the Blog! We don't go out of our way to seek praise and thanks but it does feel so good when someone makes the effort to acknowledge our work!

And so the meeting starts. It's not the job of the blog to write reports about the meetings this season - that is done in a much better fashion in other web sites and other publications. However, we are all relieved when Leigh wins the first heat in a good time and gives us the nod of approval as he enters the pits.

Those of you who have read the Blog through the winter (the old articles are all available in the Archive on the Menu Bar) will know that we have worked hard to remove the bumps and make the corners more evenly cambered. This hasn't been received with universal approval. At least two of the side have complained that the removal of the banking will affect their riding styles.
However, we wanted to smooth out the camber and open up the entrance to the corners to increase the racing lines. This apparently controversial decision is vindicated in full in heat 2 as Mads Korneliussen swoops from 4th to first on turns 1 and 2 with a real blast around the boards.

Rumours come from the turnstiles that cars have been turned away in significant numbers because the car parks are full. I wander round the track to make sure that the air pumps are topped up with fuel and as I do I am able to appreciate the size of the crowd - huge - and many enthusiastic comments about the quality of the racing on offer.

Don't get me wrong - we enjoy the win - but we are more pleased with the way that the track has held up. Sure, the turns have cut up but no one has got out of shape and the racing has been sensational. Turn 1 isn't as bad as it was after the Press day and is immeasurably better than it was after the behind closed doors practice.

We clear the boards and pull back the loose shale as Gerald and Punch grade the track. Punch, Gerald and I then take to the track as the stadium empties. Gerald leads the way with the grader and the harrow, I follow in the small tractor pulling the tractor tyres which pack down the surface and Punch follows me in the water tanker flattening out any inconsistencies in the surface. It has started to drizzle - a fine rain sweeping the stadium. It is the perfect way to water and prepare a track, so we decide to make the most of it. A major part of our work is working with the weather - in Britain in March you can't afford to miss any opportunity.

At 11pm we leave the track, park the tractors, close the gates, pull up the metal sheets that protect the dog track from damage near the pits gate and make our way out of a near deserted stadium.

It's been a very long day and I am exhausted, as well as stinking of diesel, the result of a broken pipe on the diesel tank that showered me with the foul smelling concoction earlier in the day.

Saturday 17th March
Punch, Keith and I pitch up for work at 8am. Our first task is to pull back the shale that has been thrown against the kickboards on the straights. In some places the mounds are 6 inches deep - and they say that there isn't dirt on modern speedway tracks!

As Keith and I tidy up along the kick boards Punch fills the bucket of the JCB with new red shale and then takes it out onto the track. We spread the shale over any problem areas and top dress the entrances to the turns. If we can do this on a regular basis this year we should be able to keep the track in pristine condition throughout the season.

The rainfall of Thursday evening has sealed the surface which now is drying out. Large cracks meander their way across the surface of the shale. A speedway track track changes its nature from day to day, and these cracks show how much it's changed in just 36 hours!

Punch now uses the medium blade and the harrow to pull the loose shale that we've dug out from the boards across the track as evenly as possible. The track is looking good again.

Our last task is to pack the surface down. Punch suggests that now is the perfect time for me to learn how to drive the big water tanker. By pathetic attempts to drive a tractor have been well catalogued here so the prospect of driving the massive tanker is a daunting one.

Punch drives it onto the track for me - we don't want to start demolition work on the stadium now by demolishing the pits gates!

It's surprisingly difficult to tyre pack with the tanker because you can't see the wheels and you are very high up in the cab. Nevertheless, it's great fun and, with practice, I do improve, even if it means going back over the same section of track several times to pack it all down.

At 1.30 we leave. Oh God, am I tired but the track is in good order and ready for next Thursday!

The Last Rites - No time to lose!

2007-03-14T00:47:00.000-07:00

Remember, if you want to see the colour version of the Blunsdon Blog you need to click on this link.

Another fine day in North Wiltshire – the sun shines and there is a cool fresh feel to the air. Normally we would be looking forward to such a day but this is the last weekend before the start of the season so there is a certain tension in the pits area. As soon as I park the car my eye is caught by a new water tank that has appeared on the top of the changing rooms. I gather that it’s there to increase the pressure in the riders’ showers but I am reminded of Prince Charles’ comments about a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a long lost friend”.

As the season approaches so we are joined by more of the characters who are necessary to keeping the meetings running smoothly. Kenny Bradford and his wife Mandy join us. One of their many jobs is to make sure that the pits are kept clean and tidy and then brushed out at the end of a meeting.

Out on the track the DaVinci boys are now turning their artistic attentions to the white line – they stand back and admire their craftsmanship – proud purveyors of the noble art of the long handled roller.

My first task is to get the green netting attached to the back of the air fence and then make sure that it is long enough to clip on the top of the safety fence. This netting, which stretches around the bends, is designed to keep as much of the shale on the track by preventing it from flying off over the dog track and beyond. We experimented with some yellow netting but it was curiously opaque and was swiftly discarded in favour of the green. Punch works on the track while Keith and Ernie make the final touches to the air fence. Clerk of the Course Mick Hunt “tarts” up his area of the pits with the liberal application of copious red paint.

By the end of the session, at about 2pm, the place looks ready for the behind closed doors practice session on the Sunday.

The drive to Blunsdon on Sunday morning is a “Curate’s Egg” – beautiful weather, empty roads and a twenty minute hold up at a complex set of traffic lights where every set is stuck on red.

As I drive in through the Pits’ Gate I can hear the distant whine of the air pumps. Keith, Ernie, Punch, Adam and Gerald have beaten me to it and are already inflating the air fence on all four turns. Our next task is to fix the advertising hoardings to the front of the air fence. These have a multiple use; they provide useful finance for the club during the season; they bind the fence panels together even tighter; and they keep the flying shale from besmirching our pristine air fence.

Work out on the track continues with grading, packing and watering. Practice sessions put a great degree of strain upon a newly laid track and we want to be in the best position to be able to see where any potential problems may occur.

The final piece of the giant jog saw that is the air fence is put into place - the section that covers the pits' gate. This has to fit snugly - any gaps and we would be looking at having to adjust all of the bags on turn 4 - not something we want to contemplate in our worst dreams!

Once this is done there is a quiet spell as we wait for the arrival of the gladiators. Fuel levels in all the air pumps are checked and then double checked.

First to arrive is Charlie Gjedde. He’s a little upset that the track has lost some of its banking but appreciates, from a distance, that it does look nice a flat. The air fence is completed when the pit gate section is in place.

The bright sun and keen wind are drying out the surface of the track rather too quickly for our liking - we need to keep applying water to prevent the surface from breaking up in a dusty cloud as soon as the mighty behemoths that are the bikes come out .

After all of the trials and tribulations of the last 5 months, the old place really looks good. The white line shines, the camber is smooth and the place is ready for action. In a strange way part of me doesn't want the bikes to come out onto the track - they might mess it up. Seriously, we are all slightly concerned that the riders approve of what we've done to smooth out the track and develop more riding lines.

As the first engines fire up in the pits even more water is put down on the quickly drying track. It's ironic that having spent all winter improving the drainage to get water away from the surface we are now faced with the task of keeping water on the surface. Even at this late stage, too little or too much water could ruin the practice. Punch and Gerald monitor the situation very closely.

Leigh Adams is the first of the 2007 Robins to ride on the track. Billy, his ever reliable mechanic, is on duty on the centre green. Leigh puts in a series of steady laps, stopping each time to allow Billy to make adjustments. Leigh settles in and puts in a series of startlingly quick laps.

It is immediately apparent that the old problem on turn 1 has appeared. A closer inspection shows that the sand in the shale is breaking up.

Mads Korneliussen is next up and it after he has been around that we are able to make a close inspection of the track on turn 1.

Under Gerald’s guidance, Keith removes as much of the sandy material and then drags new shale into place and hammers it down with the back of a track rake.

It’s a temporary fix – we really need to remove all of the suspect shale and replace it before running a vibrating roller over it to really pack it in place.

Apparently a promoter of some decades earlier used to solve the problems of holes in the track by mixing concrete in with the shale. This fixed the hole but made a rock solid section in the track. Where other surrounding areas of the surface would wear, the concreted section remained proud of the surface. When asked if this was dangerous he is reputed to have said, “Our riders know where the lumps are, they ride the track every week. If they’re daft enough to ride over one then it’s their own look out. As for the visitors, well, who gives a dam.”

Fortunately we live in more enlightened times!

Tomasz Chzanowksi powers around the track. It is interesting watching Tomasz in action; he moves around on the bike very fluently and tries out all manner of lines during his practice spins.

Further into the apex of turns 1 and 2 we find some more loose material with a higher than necessary sand content. There’s also an area of caking, where a layer of shale comes away from the base. It doesn’t look too good but it is much easier to fix and, frankly, it is the type of damage that we expected from such a newly laid track.

Gerald stalks the infield, frustrated that he can’t do more. He watches the riders with an intensity. Punch and I make sure that the water tanker, know colloquially as the “Mowlex” is full of water. The March sunshine and brisk wind is drying out the track quickly and we want to avoid a dust bowl at all costs.

Lee Richardson and Seba Ulamek are in Poland today for the press day for their Polish League teams and so there are nasty rumours that they may want to practice on Tuesday – my back goes into spasm just thinking about it.

Last out on the track are junior rider Billy Legg and our new number 6, Andrew Moore. He’s been held up in the aftermath of a motorway crash but soon impresses all of us. He has a smooth and economical style that seems ideally suited to the “wide open spaces of Blunsdon.”
As the riders make their way back to the pits and then the changing rooms the track staff leap (on second thoughts “lurch” would be a better verb) into action.

The loose shale around the kickboards and the air fence is inches deep and it all has to be dragged back onto the track where Punch and Gerald are able to grade it away This process takes the best part of an hour. The fence is deflated and the air pumps collected up and returned to the store room.

At the end of a stop start sort of day we are generally pleased with the way things have gone. No-one has been openly critical of the track, although there have been a few mutterings about where the steep camber of previous years has gone. Given that it is a newly laid track and that we have had the equivalent of probably two meetings worth of racing and riding on it, the surface has held up well.

Ode to a speedway track

2007-03-11T12:21:00.000-07:00

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past ....

John Keats got it just right. He didn't ride a speedway bike; he died in 1821! Yet his opening lines from the sublime Ode to a Nightingale sum up how I feel at the moment.

The weekend blog may appear here in the next day or so, according to how I feel, but the last two days have been shattering and the next two look to be the same. Saturday and today, Sunday, have been full on days at the track, and every part of my sad, pathetic little body is aching at the moment. When, after a glass of red wine, or four, I feel the muse, I will consign the happenings at Blunsdon to the computer.

For those desperate to know the latest - sorry, desperately and achingly sorry!

One week to go ...

2007-03-09T02:32:00.000-08:00

Just one week before the mighty 2007 Robins take to our beloved track against the Bulldogs of Reading.

We are assisted in our Thursday work by a number of helpers including author and speedway nut Jeff Scott.

Time and a business to run prevents me from writing much more here but the full account and all the photographs are available on the main colour blog site, available through this link.

Kicking on ...

2007-03-04T04:34:00.000-08:00

The full version of Saturday's blog can be found on the main site - click here.

A full morning's work at the track with kickboards being cable tied to the air fences and the pits receiving a liberal coating of bright red gloss paint.

Time and the pressures of work mean that the full blog can only be found on the main site .. sorry!

While the cat's away ....

2007-03-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

To view the colour version of the Blog, click here.

Gerald is not with us today - he's under the weather - so it's down to Punch and me. The original plan was to make a concerted start on the kickboards but the weather people have got it all wrong again and we just had to work with what we were given.

Heavy rain was forecasted. This would have meant no real track work and plenty of time fro the kickboards. But today it was the perfect spring day - bright sunshine and a sharp wind. Perfect for getting the racing surface in real order.

With rain forecast for virtually every day up until the start of the season we decided that we ought to grade and pack as much as possible. The grading would take out as many of the bumps and ruts as possible while the packing would firm up the surface, bring any existing patches of moisture to the surface and harden up the top to resist any further rain.

Our first task was to dig out the inside of turns 1 and 2. Despite the fact that the new drain is working so well, and no water is puddling on the apex of the corner, the inside is still very spongy. When we dig down below the shale we find a thick layer of wet mud. We dig this all out and then refill the space with new shale and then pack it down hard using the smooth tyred tractor. As we pack some moisture is driven to the surface but is soon dried by the combination of sunshine and wind.

While Punch drives the grader round I start packing down from the inside out. The aim is to make sure that no part of the track is left unpacked and that the speed of the tractor is set so that no material is brought up on the tyres. This means that where a wet patch appears you must slow right down or the shale will peal back and detach itself in great lumps.

Round and round we go, only brought to a temporary halt when Shirley calls us in for a welcome cup of coffee. Punch has been round that many times that he claims he's dizzy. But the track looks good and the surface is hardening up well.

Rosco appears with words of encouragement - much appreciated.

Press and Practice Day is just over a week away and there will be a number of practice sessions on the track in the next 14 days. We need to make sure that the track will be able to handle all of this usage.

By four o'clock we are pretty well finished. The list of things still to be done is still daunting :

Paint the white line all round
Attach the rubber kickboards to the air fence
Clean the air fence
Put up all the advertising banners
Re-assemble the starting gates and mechanism
Finish the painting in the pits
Clean up the junior pits at the back of the main pits
Top dress the track
Tidy up the main drain on turn 1/2 and so on and so forth.

But we don't mind - speedway's coming home! And soon!

Oh, and if you're reading this, GET WELL GERALD!!

Happy Birthday Punch!

2007-02-25T03:36:00.000-08:00

It's Punch's birthday; to be precise, it's his 48th 21st birthday (as the Americans would say, "Do the math!"). Birthday celebratory photographs and our work - click here!

There has been torrential rain overnight in this part of the world and the roads to Blunsdon are flooded. The water in the fields has filled all of the roadside ditched and there are sections of the road that are completely under water.

This does not bode well for the work at the track today. Having spent the best part of Thursday getting the first part of the fence in place on turn 3 we must now kick on and get the rest up today or we will run into real time problems as the season races towards us.

The first task is to inflate the section of fence that Dave and I put up. We use a petrol driven air pump to inflate and have to stand back and watch as the water floods off the sections of the fence.

Each panel collects a significant amount of water and as the fence rises this runs across the track in torrents.

The tyre packing of the last two weeks means that only the top half inch of track is slushy, and that should dry out and harden with a couple of hours of sunshine.

As the water rushes to the white line I go and inspect the drain on the first turn.

Despite the fact that a river of brown water is rushing down the start and finish straight the drain is coping with it all and no water is puddling in the problem area at the apex of turns one and two.

Punch, Gerald, Keith, Ernie and Adam are joined once again by Dave and Allen (the DaVinci boys) and while they start laying out the fences on turns one and two, Adam and I put the pits' gate air panel across the gate and then fix the first panel of turn 4 in place. This allows us to position all of the other panels accurately, without leaving any gaps.

When the panels are fully inflated we check the binding on each and make sure that they have been seated and correctly attached to the bottom of the safety fence.

The yellow additions to the bottom of the fence work well - they push the fronts of the panels upwards and keep them straighter.

Unfortunately, the new inserts are no replacement for proper thick rubber kickboards, so they will have to be attached all round the track next week.

The rubber kickboards fulfil a number of functions. Primarily they will stop a rider from sliding under the fence and injuring himself on any fence struts etc.

They also protect the fence panels themselves from tearing, when foot rests catch in them, and from burning, when hot exhaust pipes come into contact. The kickboards also help prevent build ups of shale from getting under the fence.

Satisfied, we make our way to turns 1 and 2.

We lay the panels out face down on the track and then link them up using the clasps and straps at the back. The air pipes are joined and then we inflate. At this stage we are looking for any straps that are either too loose or too tight. We also need to make sure that the panels fit together tightly. When we are satisfied that the spacing is right we deflate the fence and then begin to attach each panel to the safety fence. We use a minimum of two clips per panel and attach these to the bottom rungs of the safety fence. This will help to seat the panels squarely on the track when they are inflated. It's important to get this right - if we do then it's unlikely that we'll have to re do it this season.

We re inflate the fence and check that it is standing properly and that there are no gaps. We are more than happy. Keith sets too with a pair of blunt wire clippers and hacks his way through the safety fence to allow us to feed the air tubes through from the other side of the safety fence.

We'll use two air pumps on turns 1 and 2 - one pump just wont have enough power.

Turn 4 is relatively easy and we get it settled in less than an hour.

The escaping air bubbles up through the seams, but that OK. Many fans believe that the air fence is air tight. It's not. It lets out air along each seam, and it's meant to do that. If it didn't the fence would soon balloon up and riders would bounce off it like gymnasts on a trampoline. The air fence is supposed to absorb impact, and so it must be always allowing air to pass through it.

We end the day with birthday celebrations for the birthday boy.

A Victoria sponge is adorned with six candles (one for each successfully completed decade) and a special singing candle that serenades us with "Happy Birthday to you" over and over again.
The final joke is on us. As we stand around and watch, Punch makes a wish and blows out the candles. He's so happy that he has sufficient puff to blow them all out in one go that he sits back with a supremely smug look on his face. And then the candles relight themselves. The more he blows, the faster they relight.

It will be just Punch and me on Thursday - Gerald is unavailable. If the weather is reasonable we'll be working on the kickboards; if not we'll just have to get on with the green netting that we put up to prevent shale covering the greyhound track on the corners.

The future's safe

2007-02-22T11:43:00.000-08:00

Please click here to get to the all colour version of the Blog.

It is uncanny - every Thursday it seems to rain, and it poured down today, so much so that there are precious few photographs because I didn't want to get the camera too wet.
Punch, Gerald and I were joined by my 12 year old son, Dave. A glance through the Blog's photo album features a good few photos of him, and quite rightly so.

He (and his sister, Steffie) has been a true speedway fan since he could first walk. His autograph book is stacked with the great and the famous and he's as knowledgeable about our beloved sport as most fans.

Last season he gave up every Thursday during his school holidays to come up and work on the track and often would end up staying to tidy up after a meeting long after the racing had finished. While many of his contemporaries are content to spend hours on the PlayStation, Dave has always been more than willing to come along and work alongside us and learn from people like Gerald and Punch.

Today has been no exception. Kitted out in his new overalls and with a sturdy pair of boots, he worked alongside me assembling the air fence on turn three. The fence, as those who read about it before Christmas will know, is b.....y heavy and very awkward to manoeuvre. Add the fact that it was cold and tipping down with rain and you'll soon appreciate that the work wasn't a bundle of fun. But there were no complaints from him. He just got on with the work. With youngsters like David the future of the sport is as secure as it could be. Well done mate!

The air fence has been modified with a triangular piece added at the bottom of the front side. This should push the front of the fence upward and stop it from slipping forward.
We'll still need to add the heavy rubber kickboards to protect it but we'll get round to that later.

Getting the first section of air fence up is a very time consuming activity. Each panel must be connected by the air flow pipes and then strapped to the next panel. When the 13 sections were ready we inflated them to see how they sat against the safety fence. We then had to calculate how the gate to the pits would open and close with its air fence in place.

You can't rush this and we ended up having to move the whole air fence three times before we got it right. The fence then had to be clipped to the safety wire fence behind it. By three o'clock we had finished. The rest of the fence on turn 4 should now fit perfectly.

So what of Punch, Gerald and Shirley?

Shirl provided us with piping hot cups of coffee to ward off the cold and damp. Punch and Gerald fought an ultimately winning battle to get the old cherry picker, that has cluttered up the pits area car park, into life so that a team of scaffolders could come and remove some of the apparently unnecessary lighting poles around the edge of the track. If you look at the photograph above you'll see the lights on short poles with cross pieces running parallel to the ground. It's these latter pieces that are being removed to make the whole place look smarter and also to improve camera views when Sky come a calling.

We packed up as the sun came out, sadly too late and too wan to dry us or the track. Saturday will revolve around getting the whole air fence in place. What fun - I can hardly wait!

Oh, before I forget, it's Punch's 69th birthday on Saturday. We'll celebrate with a cake and a few candles. I'm sure his fan club would like to send him their best wishes. Email me with any special birthday sentiments and I'll make sure that he gets them on Saturday.

To send a birthday email to Punch please click here.

Christmas Quiz answers published - winner named!

2007-02-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

The Blunsdon Blog is proud to be able to announce that Mr Malcolm Gough from Swindon has won the first Blunsdon Blog Quiz. Malcolm will be presented with a signed copy of Jeff Scott's marvellous speedway book "When Eagles Dared" at the season's opener versus Reading on 15th March. Commiserations to Gordon Campbell, amongst many others, who missed out narrowly on this excellent prize. Many thanks for all those who entered.

Answers can be found via this link to the main Blunsdon Blog site.

DaVinci Boys take pits by storm

2007-02-18T10:17:00.000-08:00

The DaVinci boys in action, cubism and impressionism clash on the back straight and the leviathan takes to the track. It's all in a Saturday's work at Blunsdon.

After coming to terms with the non appearance of the infamous air fence last week, the motley band of volunteers this Saturday paint the pits, the kickboards and re-contour the track at Blunsdon.

Click here for the full colour version of the action.

But where's the b......y air fence?

2007-02-15T23:13:00.000-08:00

Remember that the colour version is available through this link.

The weather forecast was surprisingly good for a Thursday - temperatures of 9 degrees and a guaranteed clear sky and plenty of sunshine.

Right! Think again. More like 6 degrees and overcast with a constant threat of rain. Still, the three of us met up expecting to be able to receive the air fence back after its winter hibernation.

Wrong! No air fence! It's not due back now until next Monday.

Plan B. Let's fill in the dips in the track with some absorbent gray shale. This is the material that was taken from last year's Cardiff GP track. It doesn't bind well so we don't use it as a top dressing but it does help to form a hard base.

Punch, who secretly loves his JCB, leaps at the chance of collecting bucket loads of the gray shale and bringing it out on the track for Gerald and me to distribute as evenly as possible on the inside of the entrance to turn 3, in the dip in the main straight and in the problem area at the apex of turns 1 and 2.

The JCB would be perfect but the power steering doesn't work and the application of brakes makes it veer violently to the right. With these facts in mind Gerald and I keep a wary eye on Punch as he manoeuvres through the pits gate with a bucket load of heavy shale.
The gray shale fills the dips well and I brush any excess water from the puddles to clear standing water. Gerald grades and then tyres packs the surface while Punch circulates behind him with the wire mesh to draw out excess moisture.

We decide to pack the track down well. It's still too wet for heavy packing but the lorry tyre packer works a treat.

As Punch and Gerald amuse themselves on the track I start to tidy up the pits area in readiness for some serious painting on Saturday. Mick Richards from Swindon Pressure Cleaning appears and while he jet washes down the pits I follow behind with a brush, sweeping the sand and mud. The whole process takes over 2 hours but the place looks almost presentable by the time that we finish.

Lunch is taken later than usual in the superb surrounding of our plush staff room. Mick and Punch both seem very pleased with their contributions to the 2007 Blunsdon Blog Calendar (available as a free download on this site) but Gerald is less certain. He thinks I've lost the plot! He may be right.

Our peace and quite is shattered when the large skip is collected. New scalpings have been delivered so that we can try to improve the surface quality of the area at the back of the pits. We would have spread them sooner but the skip was in the way.

With the skip gone and the pits looking clean, if not tidy, we could have run a meeting - no problems.

Saturday will be a painting day. If the weather holds fair then there's a chance we might be able to get the blade out for a final cut before the start of the season. We'll also have a chance to make preparations for the return of our beloved air fence on Monday, although I'll believe that it's really coming back when I see the b....y thing!

Past 4 o'clock and it's time to head home and begin the blog. It's been a funny sort of day - very much plan B but still satisfying.

Blog launches Glamour Calendar - free download

2007-02-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

Responding to requests from its reader and fan, the Blunsdon Blog has launched the Glamour Calendar to beat all Glamour Calendars - the 2007 Blunsdon Blog Glamour Calendar.

And it's free to download on the all colour version of the blog, available at the link below.

The author of the blog wishes to make it quite clear that persons of a nervous disposition should refrain from viewing and downloading the 2007 Blunsdon Blog Calendar - the pictures are that hot! Phew!!

I'm not of a nervous disposition and in full command of all my faculties yet still wish to view, and possibly download a copy of the 2007 Blunsdon Blog Speedway Calendar. Please rush me to the site where I can feast my eyes and satiate my innermost desires!!

Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair ...

2007-02-11T10:20:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning dawned wet and cold. Fortunately we were joined by a number of volunteer workers who helped us clear out the pits and the area behind the pits where the machinery is stored. Despite the weather it was an excellent morning's work, as can be seen in the all colour, all dancing blog - click here to access it.

Where the snow lay round about ....

2007-02-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

Deep and crisp and even ...!!

Heavy overnight snowfall in North Wiltshire wiped out any prospect of work at Blunsdon today. The all colour blog (link here) does, however, include some new photographs of Punch and Gerald, as you've never seen them before!!

It's a beautiful day!

2007-02-05T00:17:00.000-08:00

The latest two blogs have been sent straight to the all singing, all dancing version of the Blunsdon Blog - click here to access them.

The colour blog has been tidied up - all blogs from 2006 have been archived and are now available from the main options bar.

Reminder to track staff at Blunsdon that there is a meeting on Thursday 8th February at Rosco's beginning at 7pm.

Under Pressure

2007-02-02T13:03:00.000-08:00

And England have won a One Day International against Australia. Euphoria! Can there be anything better in the whole universe? Well, of course, Swindon winning the 2007 Elite League title would be one!

At last, here is the Blog for 1st February 2007, replicated, with pictures on the all singing all dancing Blog website (link here).

The season is racing towards us at an unnerving speed and it is clear that we will have to work each Thursday and Saturday if we are to be ready for the first of a set of behind closed doors practice sessions for the Magnificent Seven prior to Press and Practice Day and the official start of the season.

Last Saturday Keith, Ernie and I removed all the kickboards from the main straight and re-aligned them. Last year the kickboards followed the contours of the safety fence. The principle was OK if the top of the safety fence had been level - but it wasn't. And since the level of the shale is linked to the bottom of the kickboards we did have problems levelling out the straights. Two hours later and the kickboards were sorted.

This Thursday Punch and I turned our attention to the pits car park, left in a state of desolation after the archaeological excavations just after Christmas. Deep ruts and some perilously wet areas meant that, unless urgent remedial work was carried out, we would have vans and lorries bogged in as soon as the first rain fell.

While Punch gathered up the last of our shingle in the JCB I played with the sit on roller and smoothed it all down.

The shingle surface is not popular with visiting riders and their mechanics who find it more than difficult to push heavy tool boxes into the pits. At least the surface is a bit harder now and we can turn our attention to the track.

Shirley arrived in time to make the mid morning cup of coffee and Da Vinci (Brian Cox) was lurking in the changing rooms applying more white paint to the walls and red paint to the fittings. He assures us that he is not planning a replica of the Cistene Chapel but it is clear that his artistic tendencies are being stretched by oceans of brilliant white.

While Punch and I have been playing car parks Gerald has been experimenting with the giant tyre packer after he and Punch had smoothed out the major humps and bumps using the small blades (it's still too wet to bring out the motorway blade).

The tyre packer works a treat and it is clear that, if we had had to run a meeting on Thursday, we could have.

Brian has now turned his attention to the detail on the outside of the pits. He admits that the painting work will take him several days to finish so we expect to see him still going on Saturday morning.

After lunch I turn my attention to the new drainage scheme on the approach to the first turn.
The pipe under the track is clearly doing its job - the water runs out easily and actually drains away through bottom of the hole. My task is to dig out a larger hole and then run a thin 9 inch deep trench alongside the white line right through to the main drain on turn 1. The pipe will run through this but we have also devised a cunning plan - we will fill in around the pipe with stones so that any water running down the main straight will drain away through this new soakaway, thus relieving the overworked drains on turns 1 and 2.

It's hard work digging down because there is a thick layer of stones just below the grass surface and then an even thicker layer of clay. Two hours later and Gerald approaches asking if I'll let him know when I hit oil!

Over the past couple of weeks (OK, months) I have complained about the aches and pains that I feel after a day's work at the track - and this has attracted some comment from the physio who works at the track during the season.

The fact is that I am not used to manual work, having spent 25 years teaching at a Wiltshire Comprehensive school, the last few years of which were spent behind a desk as part of its management team. I now spend my time working as a ceramic artist, designing commercial web sites, resourcing and purchasing IT equipment for individuals and teaching basic IT skills to those unfamiliar with computers. None of these are physically demanding and I admit, I have become soft in middle age.

Working with Punch and Gerald is amazing fun and I do try to keep up with them but it does take its toll. I will be making full use of the physio once the season gets underway. In the meantime I'll put my faith in whiskey and a good, hot bath!

Shock - horror - Blog delayed

2007-02-02T00:31:00.000-08:00

Whether it's because the England cricket team look as if they have a chance of winning a one day international or, more likely, that my back feels as if it has been assaulted by a sledgehammer after over ambitious trench digging at the track yesterday but the blog will have to wait until this evening for publication. Sorry!

It's better to try and fail...than fail to try!!

2007-01-22T00:17:00.000-08:00

Remember the all singing version of the blog, available via this link, including the latest from the track and a fascinating glimpse of South African speedway at Walkerville.

Saturday morning. Our second Saturday session of the year and just 63 days from the start of the new season. Punch, Gerald, Ernie Poole, Keith Johnson and I met up for an 8 o'clock start.
Keith used to to be responsible for the greyhound track at Swindon some time ago and is an experienced speedway track man.

The greyhound track is soaking wet. The incessant rain of the past few weeks has taken its toll and great streams of water are making their way down the home straight.

Although some drains were put in the only way that water seems to be able to escape is for greyhound staff to cut holes in the boards that surround the greyhound track and allow the sand clogged water to escape onto the speedway track, with disastrous consequences.

Our first task was to cut a gully from the latest hole in the boards through to the drain we put in across turn 1.

In the narrow space between the greyhound track and the speedway fence lay all manner of wires and cables, some live, some not so.

We dig carefully.

The effort is well worth it because the water runs down the gully and into the drain and from thence to the main drain on the centre green.

Having cleared the excess sand and shale away from the bottom of the fence on turns 1 and 2 last week we turn our attention to the enormous build up of sand on the main straight. Gerald wants it all cleared. His thinking is that the water from the dog track has to escape somewhere and at present all of it rushes through holes in the wall of sand. He wants the excess water to run off along the entire stretch of the straight, thus preventing the rivulets forming.

And so Punch, Ernie, Keith and I set to digging whilst Gerald fetches the tractor and trailer. We dig carefully and then throw the sand over the fence into the trailer - we cannot use it and it can't be allowed to stay on the track surface.

It's back breaking work but the sun comes out and we make surprisingly fast progress.
Two trailer loads later and the bottom of the kickboards can be seen and the whole area looks much neater. The water flows evenly into our drain. Job well done.

We turn our collective attention to turns three and four. Most of the build up of material against the fence on turn 3 is sand. This must be dug out and then collected in the JCB for dumping elsewhere.

Turn 4 is full of shale - this is dug out and distributed on the track.

We dig down until we are about two inches below the bottom of the wire fence. This is so that we will be able to hook the air fence up easily to the bottom of the wire when it is returned from its winter servicing.

Suddenly the whole place looks so much better - it's an amazing transformation in a short period of time.

Last week we were battling against gales and driving rain, not to mention the results of the archaeological digging. At that point I felt really depressed - how on earth would we get the place ready in just 7 weeks.

Yet now, the track looks good.

We still give Punch plenty of leeway as he tries to manoeuvre the JCB. We shouldn't laugh - a JCB with a full bucket of shale and no power steering is no joke - but his expression as he tries to wrestle the machine through the narrow pit gates is one to savour. Gerald has been using the grader and the harrow to spread and dry the wet shale and turn three, above, looks sensational.
We tyre pack the material down with the tractors. Unless it is tightly packed any rain will get into the surface and turn it back into mush. As it is now, if this were March we could run a meeting on the track!

In the dark recesses of the home changing room things are a stirring. Brian "No Problem" Cox is showing off his artistic side, applying a fresh coat of white paint to the walls.

In coming weeks we'll look at the changing rooms and the referees box at Swindon and all of the other places that are usually hidden from the public eye.

By 12.45 we are pretty much finished. It's been another excellent Saturday morning's work. Given that the weather seems to store itself up for Thursdays (it has been wretched every Thursday this year) we agree to meet again next Saturday.

In the meantime Punch is keen to give me a lesson in trench digging on Thursday. Is it my imagination or is my back about to go into spasm simply at the thought of it. Time for a stiff whiskey and a warm bath!

Oh, and the philosophy? That's to be found on the wall in the Home Team dressing room. It pretty much sums up our philosophy. God knows, there have been times over the winter when we've all felt like giving up and going home ... but we don't!

And we're not going to fail either! Bring on the season - we'll be ready!

Man of Shale … Gerald Richter

2007-01-18T09:16:00.000-08:00

Driving rain and 80mph winds meant that we could get very little done this week. Punch and I dug out another drain to get water from the dog track and away from the speedway surface but were soon driven back to the relative warmth of the staff room. I took the opportunity to interview Gerald Richter, track curator at Swindon, about his work and experiences.

The whole interview and photographs of his South African tracks can be found on the full blog. Click here to load the all colour, all dancing version of the blog.

In the second of our interviews with track staff (the first being with Rod “Punch” Ford) the Blunsdon Blog caught up with Chief Track Curator at Swindon, and also at Arena Essex, Gerald Richter.

Born in Bulawayo in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Gerald found himself growing up in a family of motor sport fanatics. His father, in particular, was a fan of all types of motor sports in Rhodesia and South Africa. He knew all of the Southern African speedway riders and often took his 6 year old son, Gerald, to speedway meetings. Gerald was hooked on the sport almost immediately.

“Dad would help out in the pits and I spent the first race of my first meeting on the terraces and then joined him in the pits. I think that one race was the last time I spent time of the terraces watching a speedway meeting.”

The Richter family moved to Northern Rhodesia to a place called Broken Hill. Here Gerald completed his schooling and indulged in all manner of sports. “There were no youth clubs and the cinema was only open one day a week. Power cuts were a norm and when it rained it flooded. After school there was nothing else to do other than play sport and I enjoyed cricket, rugby, football, diving in fact just about anything.”

Gerald moved south to work on a farm and it was there that he got to know Alex Ferguson (no, not that Alex Ferguson) who was opening up Rhodesian and South African speedway to visitors from the UK. “I can remember seeing Dave Jessup, Tom Leadbeater, Barry Duke, Norman Stachan and Bobby Beaton amongst many others.”

Gerald’s brother was a flat track rider at the time but he soon became friendly with top Rhodesian rider Peter Prinsloo.

The move to South Africa in 1972 brought Gerald into contact with Buddy Fuller who operated tracks in and near Johannesburg and it was here that Gerald really cut his teeth on track preparation. Having learned his trade on tracks throughout the country the young Richter was ready to take on the responsibility of working with renowned track man Peter Murray at the Corobrick track near Johannesburg. 205 metres in length, the Corobrick (taken from the name of the local “Coronation Brickworks”) was a deliberate copy of the Costa Mesa track in South California. “We even went so far as to copy the kick boards. It was a great little track.”

During the mid 1980’s Gerald gained his referee’s licence and set about an extraordinary period where he not only prepared the track, he refereed the meetings and then ran the bar after the event. “We had all of the top South African and Rhodesian riders competing at the track, including Denzil Kent, David Steen, Dion Prinsloo, Eddie Cox and Nick Floyd.”

During the late 1980’s the international brigade came for a series of meetings. Riders such as Kelvin Tatum rode on “Richter” tracks in South Africa as Gerald’s reputation as an A1 track man gained momentum.

But all good things come to a close and Corobrick closed in 1990. In the meantime Gerald was travelling throughout South Africa visiting car tracks and preparing special speedway tracks on them for individual meetings throughout the speedway season. “I also gained a reputation as a ‘rain man’. I’d arrive at a track, set it up and then, on the day of the meeting, the rain would come. In some places we visited it hadn’t rained for months. Ten minutes after I started on the track the heavens would open.”

In case you are thinking that track preparation was his main employment, it was not. During these years Gerald was working at developing a highly successful Insurance and Financial Brokerage company in South Africa.

In 1989 Gerald took the derelict Walkerville track about 8 miles south of Johannesburg, and set about transforming it into a proper speedway track (295 metres long) with proper facilities. The accompanying photographs show a series of before and after shots and it is clear that it promised to be a superb venue. However, Speedway South Africa granted the track only one full meeting in that year, the others being farmed out the sub standard car racing tracks. The fact that the sport has almost completely collapsed is testament to the quality of leadership at SA motorsport at this time. Meetings were held at the track but Gerald was fast becoming disillusioned by South Africa.

The level of crime and corruption was increasing at a rapid rate. As South African Speedway delegate at the FIM Conference in 1998 Gerald met with Terry Russell. A link was made that would soon bring Gerald and then his family to the UK. Twice stabbed in attempted street robberies, Gerald decided that the time had come to leave the lawlessness of South Africa.

After sending his CV to Terry Russell in 2001 he was invited over with the prospect of becoming track curator at Sittingbourne. Sadly the plans for Sittingbourne faltered at Planning Permission level and so Gerald was installed as track man at Area Essex. When Terry Russell took over Swindon in 2004 one of his first jobs was to install Gerald as track curator at The Abbey Stadium.

“I just love this area. We live in a small village north of Swindon and it is a typical piece of Old England with Old English values and I love it. My wife works in Swindon for a major insurance company and my children have settled so well, although they are grown up now.”

Ask Gerald about the greatest challenge that he, and other track men up and down the country, and he responds without hesitation – “Drainage. In many cases there is no actual drainage from the centre green of a track and every drop that falls in the stadium eventually makes its way down the lowest point, the speedway track or the centre green. And there it stops! At Swindon we have a 4 inch pipe running over 100 metres to get water away from the centre green and you don’t need to be a genius to appreciate that that is not sufficient.

“Building work will begin on the new stadium at Swindon soon and I just hope that the architects and planners include proper drainage from the centre to outside the stadium. It would also nice if the centre green were lower than the track – that would make for brilliant drainage.”

So what, in Gerald’s estimation, makes for a good speedway track?

“First you need good staff to help you and lots of preparation. You just can’t leave a track from one week to the next and hope that it will be all right to ride on. Being responsible for a speedway track is like no other. You find yourself hammered by riders and promoters and by the public, but you just have to take that. Remember that when the home team wins it is the riders who have ridden well; if they lose it’s inevitably because the track was bad.

“My perfect track is one that is fast and safe with possibilities for passing. Level and even, the track should be firm going into the corners but there must then be some dirt to give them grip and prevent the bikes from sliding too far. I want to see bikes going at full speed down the straights and then having sufficient grip on the corners to allow the riders to enter into a fast, controlled slide. Speedway is all about speed and control and it’s my job to make sure that the track gives the riders a chance to demonstrate their skills of balance and control. In a perfect world it would never rain on the day of a meeting, nor would it be baking hot before a fixture. Sadly, you have to work with the weather in this country – there’s no point trying to work against it. So much of the job is trying to predict what the weather is going to do and then anticipating what needs to be added to the weather’s effects to make a track good for racing.

“Swindon is a particularly difficult track to deal with. It’s sheer size makes it hard to prepare and the drainage problems simply compound the difficulties, but every track is difficult and they all have their problem areas.

“I’ve worked at Reading, Oxford, Poole, Wolverhampton, Eastbourne and the Isle of Wight amongst others and they all have their own characteristics and challenges. Cardiff presents many unique challenges and I’ve helped prepare that track.

“Nobody sets out to prepare a bad track on purpose – when the track is bad it’s always down to outside influences. I’m lucky here because I’ve got good equipment and good helpers but a lot of trackmen work on their own with poor equipment – it just makes their jobs so much more difficult. But above all, you cannot sit back and rest on your laurels. If the track is good one week there is nothing to say that it will remain so. A speedway track is like a living being – it needs to be understood and studied to get the best from it.”

So what have been the worst experiences in speedway from Mr Richter. “No need to think about that – The World Cup meeting at Swindon in 2005. I was so tensed up that I was physically ill during the build up to the start of the meeting.

“Not only did we have significant numbers of riders and mechanics in the pit area but the Sky vans were here as well. The whole pit area and behind it was mayhem. We started work during the preceding week and all seemed to be going well. Punch and I were at the track on the Sunday at 5 am to put the final touches prior to practice. We then had some rain which meant that practice had to be put back a couple of hours. 20 riders then belted round the track for what seemed like hours, trying out just about every square inch of the track. It was during this session that we saw and appreciated the style of young Russian called Renat Gafurov!

“By the time that the practice had finished the track looked as if about 20 meetings had been run on it. There was a lot to do and we knew that we had to get some water onto it to prevent a dust bowl in the evening. It was at this moment that the main water tanker decided to breakdown in the middle of the pits. Nobody could get around it and we were in real trouble. Once we’d managed to move the damn thing we had to water and prepare the track by hand. Everything was going against us and time was ticking by. Ole (Olsen) was in a panic and the Sky guys were frantic.

“And then it rained. I could hardly believe it. Everyone was convinced the meeting would have to be called off but we got the “Wonderwheel” out and just about rescued the situation. Anyway, the British lads did really well and everyone considered it to be good meeting. We were so relieved and completely exhausted. I never want another meeting like that one.”

Gerald Richter has now turned an extremely expensive hobby in South Africa into his main job over here but it’s not his only job. In addition to preparing and overseeing the tracks at Swindon and Arena Essex, Gerald is also employed by a leading supermarket chain, stocking the store and often working very unsocial hours.

Next time you come to Swindon and see the crouched figure behind the wheel of the yellow tractor with the South African sticker on its window, just consider this :

He’s been at the track probably since 7am, often before that. He’s worked without a break right through to the start of the meeting. He’s kept the track in some sort of order (the aim is that heat one conditions should be close to those experienced in heat 15) throughout the meeting. While you are driving home of enjoying a pint in the bar, he and his team will be “putting the track to bed”, taking down air fences and repairing the track. When you are tucked up in bed he will be tidying the area around the pits before locking up the stadium. It being the early hours of Friday morning, he will then drive over 130 miles to Arena Essex and catch three or four hours in a caravan at the back of the stadium.

Up at 7am he will work with his track staff through until midnight (Arena’s matches in 2007 will predominantly be on a Friday night). If he’s not too knackered he may then drive back to his home on the Wilts Gloucestershire border.

Saturday morning and he will be at The Abbey to supervise the weekend work before leaving at lunchtime to go and put in a full day’s work at the supermarket. Sunday may well see him at Blunsdon. Monday and Tuesday will see him either working at Blundson, Arena or at the supermarket. Wednesday is a preparation day for the next week and on Thursday he starts work again at Swindon at 7am.

And before you mention that this is only during the season from March to October, the work of a speedway track curator is definitely a 12 month year.

It’s a mad life and it can’t be good for the health. So why does he do it? Why do they all do it, those who don overalls and work throughout the year on our speedway tracks? They do it primarily because they love the sport and because, when they receive even a little praise, it makes all the difference and makes those wet and cold days’ work all worth while.

So the next time that you feel the need to hurl abuse at a member of the track staff during a speedway meeting just take a moment to appreciate how he feels because if you feel upset, he will be feeling one hundred times more upset. The track is a reflection of the people who work on it and with it. Gerald Richter is a proud man who is mortally wounded when something goes wrong on the track.

I’m just a hack, a volunteer who stayed and stayed. Had it not been for Gerald Richter and Punch Ford I would have retreated to my place on the terraces long ago. Together they make a remarkable team – both are remarkable men and Swindon are very lucky to have them working at the Abbey.

A Bad Dose of the Wind

2007-01-11T11:20:00.000-08:00

Remember - the all colour version of the blog can be accessed via this link!

The weather forecast was not propitious - high winds and driving rain. However, Gerald had declared that there would be work and so Punch and I turned up ready and willing at 9am. The drive to the track was somewhat fraught - downed trees and flooded fields did not bode well for a satisfying or comfortable day's work at The Abbey.

But when I arrived at the track I thought that someone was winding me up. We've covered archaeology at the track in recent editions of the blog, so when I saw a "Cotswold Archaeology" van in the car park I thought someone (Punch) was playing a little joke.

Closer inspection of the state of the car park changed my view.

With the work on the new stadium scheduled to begin in the summer it has transpired that the site of the Abbey Stadium was apparently over the top of some sort of ancient burial ground.
Given that, if the plans go according to schedule, the stadium will be demolished in 2007 it was decided that now would be an ideal time for the historians to excavate the site to verify whether the rumours of the burial site were true.

And haven't they made a mess. In addition to the vast trench that was dug through the pits' car park, there are four giant trenches running across the centre green.

Sadly, the trenches aren't that deep (a couple could have become very effective drains) whilst the others could have been gainfully employed burying the odd promoter or two.

The site archaeologist was not hopeful of a positive outcome - when the stadium was built it seems that everything on the site was pretty well destroyed.

But we are nevertheless left with a stadium and track that looks as if a bomb has hit it.
But at least the drain pipe that we put in is working. The water in the hole on the centre green proved that to be the case. What a shame, therefore that a bright spark on the greyhound track had cut a drainage hole a mere 2 metres from out drainage hole and thus flooded the track with yet another dose of sand and water. The word "muppet" springs to mind!!

But it was wet and windy, very wet and very windy. We struggled to even walk against the 70mph gusts and took refuge in the staffroom until the weather calmed. Just as Gerald was announcing that we might as well pack up and go there was an enormous bang from somewhere outside. Our initial thoughts were that a roofing panel had blown loose. Closer inspection showed a series of fence panels had been flattened, and then we saw the electronic scoreboard that stands above the pits gate. The wind was so strong that the stanchions were bending and the front panel was bowing out dangerously.

As we stood by the pits entrance part of the advertising boards blew past us at high speed and there was another ominous crack.

As I walked around to take a look at the fencing panels there was another bang and it was then that I saw that the wind was gusting so hard that the fixings for the scoreboards were actually pulling the wall of the pits down - a great crack had appeared and you could see daylight through it.

Had we not acted quickly I am sure that the whole wall would have been ripped off and the scoreboard would have adorned the grey hound track. I wouldn't have liked to have been the person to ring up Terry Russell to tell him that his scoreboard was sinking in quick sand and the pits were falling down!

We managed to pin the supports with the arm of a JCB and then Punch and Gerald scaled the pits' walls and we tied the supports to various immoveable objects - the rest of the pits and an enormous water tank.

By the time we had lashed the scoreboard in place and closed up the hole in the wall we were very wet and very cold. The rain was actually stinging our hands and faces.

The one ray of sunshine was the unexpected arrival of Charlie Gjedde. He popped in on the off chance that someone would be at the track.

We spent sometime working out which pit area would be the best for him and then talking about his preparations for the new season.

I am sure that all Swindon fans will be delighted to know that Charlie's preparations are going to plan and that he is fit and ready to ride.

By mid day we had retreated to the relative calm and warmth of the staffroom. Gerald decides that we must put in some Saturday morning sessions so we are to meet this coming Saturday morning at 8am to carry out some digging and drainage work.

As we leave I wave at the forlorn figure of the archaeologist, soaked from head to foot and covered with mud, and take a quick glimpse to make sure that the scoreboard is still in place.
I have a feeling that it might still be there on Saturday but the weather man on the radio has just announced yet more horrendously powerful gusts and gales this evening.

Counting down the days ...

2007-01-04T08:32:00.000-08:00

If you're like me, and counting down the days to the start of next season, the Countdown feature on the Blunsdon Blog may well prove to be a lifeline. Locate it on the side bar of every page and it will reveal exactly how long it is to the start of the new season, in days / hours / minutes and seconds!

Archaeology and the Speedway Track
We have been inundated with requests (well, one or two) for a larger picture of the archaeological dig that Gerald, Punch and I took part in near the entrance to the first turn at the Abbey in late 2006. In response, mainly because we've not done any work at the track this week, we've published a full sized picture of the various layers of surface that have built up on the Blunsdon track since 1949.

Happy New Year

2007-01-01T07:13:00.000-08:00

Good tidings from all at the Blunsdon Blog to everyone out there.

It may be quite on the track front (we're all taking time out for the festive season) but it's all happening with the website. Our good friend Jeff Scott, he of "Showered in Shale" fame, brought us to the attention of the editors of SpeedwayPlus and the hits on the site have just gone mad. "You'll have to be a bit more grown up and responsible now," my wife told me. No, just can't do "grown up and responsible" so we'll carry on slightly tongue in cheek, as before!

Gordon Campbell from Edinburgh is the current leader in the Christmas Quiz competition but his answers weren't perfect, so give it a try.

Click here to link to the Quiz page. Click here for SpeedwayPlus. Click here for the index page of the website.

The Christmas Quiz

2006-12-27T12:59:00.000-08:00

The Blunsdon Blog is delighted to announce the publication of its Christmas Speedway Quiz. Clicking here will take you to the Quiz - closing date, sometime in January.

Amazing prizes - well, amazing prize. No anorak needed to enter.

Good luck and a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

Three brass monkeys and ................... not a welder in sight!

2006-12-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to all our readers - remember to log on to the all colour, all dancing version of the blog with this link.

"Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness ..." Keats described Autumn thus in his great Ode. Little chance of fruitfulness today, but it was beautiful driving from my home in Malmesbury to the top of Blunsdon Hill and our beloved Abbey Stadium.

The pits area was like an ice skating rink and the mist was gathering as we walked the track.

From the pits gate we couldn't even make out the starting gate let alone turns one and two.

The surface was frozen through and very, very hard indeed, thus ruling out any chance of any blading or grading work.

We decided that we'd check the track surface.

Punch and Gerald wandered off to take a look at the entrance to turn three. Gerald has an idea that we remove one air bag from turns 1 and 2 and a further bag from 3 and 4. By starting the air fence a little further around each bend he hopes to present a wider entrance to the turns and so help to develop more racing lines.

Tracks made in the shale surface last week have now been filled with ice. Ideally we would have liked to have put at least two or three JCB bucket loads of new shale down but, apart from this section on the inside of turn 3 and a dip near gate 4 on the start line, the track looks to be in pretty good shape.

Infact, this frost should help us.

A lesson I learned early on was that you have to make the weather and conditions work to your advantage - there's no hope in trying to work against the elements. Frost in the track will help to break down the surface when it thaws and should help us to produce a "billiard table" surface in the new year.

The trench that we dug last week shows up quite clearly with a ridge of frost.

The frost is evidence that this part of the surface is not as hard or well packed as the rest of the track. It's as much as we had expected and we're not worried about it. The good news is that there is a muddy puddle at the end of the pipe by the white line. The brown pipe end can just be made out) and alongside it is a sandy residue - the result of sand laden water that would, previously, have snaked its way across the entrance to turn one but now is gathered in the concrete trap that Punch laid at the weekend and then drained under the track.

The plans to join the new drain pipe to the main drainage are on turn one are shelved when we take a closer look at the ground - it is rock hard.

We retreat to the relative comfort of the track staff room and wrap ourselves around cups of hot coffee.

We are all cold, very cold, and the decision to cut short our day's work is taken with little hesitation.

The good news is that we are ahead of schedule - the bad news is that there are only 15 or 16 days work left (each Thursday) until the next season begins.

Punch, Gerald, all the other chaps who give up their time to come and work on the track, and me send you all the best wishes for the festive season and a good year both on and off the track for everyone, especially the Swindon Robins.

Next week the blog will publish its annual Speedway Quiz, so make sure that you log on for that and get those speedway brain cells exercised.

Off the Richter Scale

2006-12-14T13:04:00.000-08:00

The stories of the great rift valley on turn one at Blunsdon have been well catalogued both here and in other arenas. Today was therefore an important day in the life of the old circuit at The Abbey. Remember, the full colour version can be accessed from here.

We didn't have to look long for the problem area when we arrived at the track this morning - there it was, lovingly carved out by mother nature.

The greyhound track, which surrounds the speedway circuit at Swindon, is now significantly higher and, consequently, every time it rains the water, and quite a bit of sand, washes down behind the fence and kickboards and then makes its erosive way across the entrance to turn 1, weakening the surface.

The solution we came up with was to dig a trench 18 inches deep across the problem area and sink a drainage pipe to take the water straight from the greyhound track, under the speedway track, and away into the drains on the inner field of turns 1 and 2. Another great supporter of Swindon, Dave, gave up his day off to dig us a trench.

Carefully Dave began to remove the top surface from out by the kickboards. We knew that the material would be hard and well packed.

What we weren't expecting was an immoveable object!

What we actually found was a vast piece of concrete lurking six inches below the surface.

Dave tried to dig through it, under it, around it, but it would not budge. Closer inspection showed it to be a concrete slab into which the stock car fence was fixed when "stocks" were raced at Blunsdon.

In the end we had to locate the edge of the slab and dig around it.

What we found was fascinating. The picture (left) shows the various levels of strata and is as close to archeology as speedway is ever likely to be.

At the bottom was the black cinder surface originally laid in 1948.

The various types of shale used over the last 50 years could be easily made out. Our upper layer was redder than the level below, which was a finer, brownish coloured shale.

Below that was a sandier type of shale and then a number of reddish layers before the magical black cinders of that original track appeared. Under the cinders was a layer, about an inch thick, of clinker. Both cinders and clinker presumably came from the railway works in Swindon.

While Dave, the digger and Gerald went of to fill the JCB's bucket with new shale (actually taken from a supply used at the 2006 Cardiff GP), Punch and I made sure that the trench was level and ready for the pipe work.

We'll show this picture to the next rider who complains about a bumpy entrance to turn 1.

We received a delivery of the top dressing from the 2006 Cardiff GP track in the summer but haven't used it much because it is very fine with quite a low in clay and doesn't bind very well on its own.

It is quite a brown shale, quite distinctive from the shale that we usually use at Blunsdon.

Gerald sources our usual shale from the Midlands and, as can be seen, it is a much redder material.

Gerald doesn't believe in using specially mixed and formulated shales - "God's been doing it quite successfully for the last few billion years ... I'll trust in his experience of mixing shale."

Plan A was to dig a trench across both turns 1 and 3. Plan B was not to bother with the turn 3 trench, and so it came to pass.

Dave put down two full loads of Cardiff shale onto turn 3 and then Punch spread it and mixed it with the water laden material already there. With luck it will bind together.

Perhaps not as large as we were expecting, the pipes were nevertheless received with some enthusiasm.

Gerald shows his admiration for the pipe bends but can't fathom if the pipes are right handed or left handed!

Of course, we don't want to sure one problem only to create another. As Punch and I shovel the mixture of shale and cinders back into the trench Gerald uses the Kubota tractor to pack the material down firmly. At this stage the last thing we want is to replace one area of weakness with another.

We pull the last of the material back over the trench and then begin the process of packing it down firmly. The cinders have come to the surface in some places and we have to manually collect up some pieces of clinker that have appeared.

Although there is a pronounced bump there we are confident it will all settle down over the winter.

After a later than usual lunch break we carry on grading and leveling the surface until turn one entrance looks almost perfect. It will sink a little over the next few weeks but should be in great shape for the 2007 season, perhaps our last at the Abbey Stadium, Blunsdon.

We spend the rest of the afternoon grading and packing down the surface of the entire track. At one stage a casual observer might surmise that Punch and Gerald were engaged in "big boys" tractor racing but both assured me that what was being done was purely in the best interests of the track!

I must mention Brian Cox at this stage. He will be most put out if I fail to mention his sterling work on the advertising hoardings as we dug our trench.

Mick from Swindon Pressure Cleaning also turned up later in the afternoon to check on progress and to wish us all a merry Christmas.

We'll be back next Thursday (21st December) to link our new pipe to the main centre green drains and bed the track down for Christmas. In the meantime its time for the Radox and a hot soak in the bath.

The Magnificent Seven

2006-12-12T00:08:00.000-08:00

At 8am this morning, Swindon Team Manager and Co-promoter Alun Rossitter announced the names of the 7 riders who will make up the 2007 Swindon Robins.

The Blog can now proudly announce that they are :

Leigh Adams
Tomasz Chrzanowski
Seba Ulamek
Lee Richardson
Charlie Gjedde
Mads Korneliussen
Andrew Moore

The Blog’s reaction? It looks good. This septet should be a real crowd pleaser up and down the country at away tracks and should be well nigh unbeatable at The Abbey.

Prediction? Last year we tasted the play offs – in 2007 we’ll go all the way.
Come on you Robins!

Water, Water everywhere ....

2006-12-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

Remember that the colour version is just a click away!

The weather forecast is foul – driving rain and high winds all day. It does not bode well for a day’s work on a speedway track.

When I arrive at The Abbey Stadium Gerald and Punch are holed up in the staffroom and the kettle is on. It’s too wet to be contemplating anything on the track so we set about waiting for the lorry that will take the air fence away fro servicing.

After a cup of coffee and a general chat about the state of speedway in the UK we decide to make some secure storage space for when the replacement equipment arrives. Those who have been avidly following this diatribe (blog) will already know that some bas….ds broke into the track a few weeks back and stole our equipment including all of Punch’s tools.

There’s no photographs of the new hidey-hole – it’s all very hush hush.

Gerald’s on the phone again. The time for the lorry’s arrival has come and gone and the storm clouds are massing. He stomps around the yard and finally calms down sufficiently to tell us that the lorry will be here, but it will be 90 minutes late.

We retreat to the relative warmth of the staffroom.

Gerald talks longingly about the tracks that he created in South Africa. We will be featuring pictures of them in due course (when I can get my hands on the photos). The tracks are neat and tidy. Sad to say, but it now appears that they have fallen into disuse as South African speedway fast approaches extinction.

Discussion turns to shale. Some tracks use shale that has been mixed with clay to produce a surface that binds. It’s a personal point of view but Gerald firmly believes in avoiding man made mixtures. “I’d prefer to leave it to God. He’s been mixing shale for billions of years and he’s just about got the mixture right.” The shale at Swindon comes from a quarry up in the East Midlands. Shale is oxidised coal and is found on or very close to coalfields. The present stock comes form a seam that was uncovered last year.

The red shale is used in many everyday locations. Golf courses use packed shale as a surface for walkways and councils up and down the country use shale to bolster up the surface of pavements and paths. Because it is relatively low in clay content it allows water to drain through without clogging up into a cloying mixture.

The shale has to be graded and ours has been passed through a grader with piano wire to sift out larger particles. When the shale is mined it comes out in large, hard clumps. These are broken down in crushers and the subsequent material passed over the wired grading machine. Larger pieces are rejected – speedway riders rightly object to being hit by missiles inches across travelling at high speed from the rear of a speedway tyre.

When the shale is watered and packed down it makes for a hard surface that can be raced upon. The addition of brick dust can help to dry out a track, since the brick material is highly absorbent. Sometimes granite dust is also added to protect against over watering but in both cases the effect can be problematical; too much water and the surface with brick dust and granite can become Somme like and is rendered totally useless for racing.

It is this fine balance that the experienced track curator has to achieve – not enough water and the track breaks up into a dustbowl – too much and it becomes sticky and uneven (and unraceable).

The lorry arrives followed ten minutes later by Rosco. Punch, Gerald and I heave the sections of air fence up onto the lorry while the driver and Rosco manoeuvre them into place. By the time that the 48th panel has been hoisted into place we are all knackered. Punch and I have boots full of water where the fence has kindly drained down our legs. Gerald is unhappy about missing his dentist’s appointment and so we pin Rosco down (metaphorically, you understand) and force him to reveal the names of the septet who will make up the 2007 Robins.

Sorry, can’t mention any names – the information is embargoed until next Tuesday (12th December) so who will be accommodated in the pits at Blunsdon will have to wait until then.

We retire to the staffroom and begin plans for the drainage pipes that we hope to install on turns 1 and 3. We’ll be using 5 inch pipes buried at a depth of about 18 inches. These should collect the water that runs off the dog track and send it straight through to the drains on the centre green. This should helps us to avoid the breaking up of the track, especially at the crucial point in turn one where the bikes are revving at their highest.

If we can get the drainage completed and get some new shale onto the track before the Christmas break we’ll be more than happy but we’re in the hands of the weather from now on.

In the mean time, have a look at the photo gallery on the “All dancing blog” site and get ready for a very unusual speedway quiz coming your way.

The bath is calling and my back is about to be rewarded for another solid day’s work.

FAFs Rejoice and Punch Revealed!

2006-11-30T13:55:00.000-08:00

Once again, for those needing the all colour version, click here!

Those who have been following the everyday saga of track folk, as presented in the Blunsdon Blog, will no doubt know, the air fence has been monopolising our work over the past five weeks.

Today I can proudly announce that the blo...dy thing is clean and tidy and safely stored ready for collection by the manufacturers. Gerald, Punch, Mick (from Swindon Pressure Cleaning) and I managed to hook up the final 15 sections in the car park, hose them down, deflate and dry them and then fold and store. So all you FAFs out there – Friends of the Air Fence – will have to make do with just the occasional mention between now and March when we’ll go through the whole rigmorole in reverse when we put the blo..dy thing back again in readiness for press and practice day.

Mind you, I could have parked my car better. By the time that Mick had finished with the fence the once pristine white 205 looked as if it had just completed the old RAC Rally. It really was “Showered in Shale”, to borrow the title from Jeff Scott’s brilliant account of a year in speedway.

While we pack the panels away Gerald ventures out onto the track with the small blade. He’s considered using the big motorway blade again but the shale on the turns is still very wet from where we cut it last week and we’re worried that the whole machine will simply get bogged down. At this stage we need to add some new shale to the old to get it to bind properly. Many of the properties that shale possess help it to stick together and form a firm, hard base but those elements are also the first to be washed away when it rains. Consequently, the shale on the track is weak and needs bolstering up. Sadly our JCB is under repair at the moment so the new shale will have to wait. It’s a real shame because had we been able to mix it in we could them have bladed and then tyre packed (to protect the surface) in readiness for future work.

Punch and I shovel loose material away from the kick boards and the trim up the track down the main straight, cutting away the shale from alongside the white line. Gerald spreads the debris we shower on the track and the whole place looks as if it could stage a meeting by the time that we pack our things up as the light starts to fade.

The lack of new work on the track this week gives me a chance to talk to the longest serving member of the track team at Blunsdon, the one and only Punch.

Rod Ford, known throughout the speedway world as “Punch” is a real character. He got the nickname from being a pretty successful amateur boxer in his younger days, actually appearing on television for one bout. Married, with a large family based in the area, he dotes on his children and grandchildren. If you want to bring a smile to his face, ask him to talk about his grandchildren.

Punch’s father was a farm worker and the family moved about a fair deal during his formative years. He recounts stories of long, long days spent working in the fields as a youngster – character and strength building times that have served him so well in the intervening years.

When I proposed an interview his first comment was, “Write what you f….g well like!” so what follows is taken from odd snippets of conversation with him over the past few weeks.

He saw his first meeting at Swindon in 1949, the very first meeting at the Abbey. He couldn’t remember the opposition or the score. Here I turn to Robert Bam ford’s excellent tome “Homes of British Speedway” (ISBN 0-7524-4004-7 which would make a brilliant Christmas present for any speedway fan!) That first meet was on 23rd July 1949 and the opposition was Oxford. The score … well, the Robins actually lost 39-45, but we’ll gloss over that. He can remember that his Dad and he stood on a block of concrete on the exit of turn two. From that moment on Punch was hooked on the noble sport.

To date Punch has worked at the track for 36 years. He was introduced to the track team by his good friend, the late Ray Morse, who for many years was Clerk of the Course at Swindon right up until his death. Another track man, John Smith, worked alongside Punch under the overall guidance of Ted Nelson, who was in charge of the track at the time.

His first tasks were shovelling the shale and tractor driving. Of course, in those days, speedway at Swindon was a Saturday night affair and this enabled Punch to combine his full time job as a builder with his passion for the shale sport. Watering of the track was via four hose pipes, one on each bend, and Punch spent the first few years hosing down turns three and four.

This was many years before the advent of the air fence. In those days the track was surrounded by a four foot high safety fence and any advertising banners were simply hung over the barrier. Crowds were huge in those halcyon days. Punch recalls having to park his car down near to the Turnpike Roundabout before one international match at the Abbey.

So what have been the major changes in his time at Blunsdon? Tracks were deeper in those days. The old two stroke Jawas and Japs coped with the deep stuff and times were not that far off what is seen nowadays. “It’s just that these four strokes are so powerful and the back wheels spin so much, I suppose the riders would find it difficult to turn the bikes enough.” He doesn’t have much time for today’s penchant for slick tracks. “It just seems as if everything is about speed, just brute speed. I don’t think you can say that the riders of old were more skilful than today but perhaps the better riders shone more and those with less talent had to work that much harder for success.”

Of course, the machinery used to prepare a track now is much more sophisticated than it was in the distant days pre the 4 stroke revolution. “Yes, but one major advantage those old bikes has was that they spread oil over the surface of the track and oil helps bind a shale surface better than anything else. By the end of a meeting virtually the entire track had been dusted with a thin film of engine oil and we just had to grade it and let the oil do the rest. Nowadays all we get is water from the dog track and that destroys the binding qualities of the surface and results in bumps and holes.”

The banking at The Abbey was steeper than it is now. “John Hector tried to blade it down so that it was like Poole’s track,” he comments. “But it’s built up a bit since then. We had to raise the safety fence to its present height (about 6 foot) for safety reasons – the lighting masts weren’t far enough away from the track fence so the Control Board made us raise them. It wasn’t popular with the fans but we had to do it for safety reasons.”

Rider safety is paramount when it comes to track preparation and Punch is under no illusions that the introduction of the air fence has been a good thing for speedway riders and fans alike. “It’s given riders more confidence to try different lines and in so doing has improved the quality of the racing.”

Blunsdon is one of the last big tracks in Britain and it is well known for the speeds that the riders achieve, yet the number of serious accidents at The Abbey is considerably less than at most tracks. Punch thinks he knows why. “It’s a big and open track. If a rider gets into trouble there’s usually plenty of space for him to try to correct himself. The banking also helps because it pushes the rider into the inside of the track and away from the fence. Our air fence has worked well this year. One referee (I’d better not mention any names) tried to claim that a rider had slipped under the fence during one incident but fortunately we had a photographer on hand who was able to show that the fence stopped him before he could slide under. The last nasty accident we had here was when Billy Hamill was injured here over a year ago. And that was because his engine seized mid corner and the rider behind him couldn’t get his bike down in time.”

When you’ve been as integral to the sport as Punch has been for such a long time it’s inevitable that you have favourite riders, and not so favourite riders!

“My favourite rider for sheer speed was Erik Gundersen, although Jan O Pedersen wasn’t far behind him. The most stylish was the late, and great Tommy Jansson. He was a beautiful rider to watch and the sport took a real blow when he was killed in a World Championship meeting in Sweden. Of our own boys I’d say Martin Ashby was one I always enjoyed watching. Of the visiting riders I liked Ilya Teromaa and John Boulger and I thought that the late Kenny Carter was perhaps the most exciting British rider of his time. It’s difficult comparing riders from different decades – the sport has moved on and developed and styles come and go. One rider who could hold the white line better than anyone else I ever saw at Blunsdon was Steen Mastrup in the early eighties. He was a much better rider than many think – good balance and control of the throttle. A safe and stylish rider.

Anders Michanek and Ove Fundin were hard riders but I always got on well with them. The best team manager I ever worked with was Dick Bradley, who used to own a garage in Cricklade. He was a great bloke to work for, but then I’ve worked for so many over the years. I’ve seen them all come and go,” he chuckles.

Of the modern day riders, who really impresses Punch. “I’d have to say that the most skilful rider I’ve seen here, in fact anywhere, is Leigh Adams. He has such skill and never looks in trouble. The most aggressive is Jason Crump. He is aggressive on the track and also off it. He really drives himself and deserves to be World Champion. If Leigh Adams had a little bit of Jason’s competitiveness he’d be World Champion. But Leigh’s a top bloke –really nice. This year especially, he’s made the effort to have a chat with track staff as often as possible and we really appreciate it. If Cumpy is Mr Aggressive then Mr Nice Guy is Mark Loram. “He is one of the fairest racers I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t give up until the race has finished and he never closes the door on a rider. I’ve seen a few who would as soon put you in the fence as let you past. That’s not Mark’s way and I respect him for that.”

But what about other tracks? Which ones, from the vast number that he’s visited, does he remember most fondly. “The old Edinburgh track was a pretty one and I do like the one at Somerset now. Tracks like the old circuit at Knowle in Bristol used to produce good racing.”

So what makes a good track? Punch’s views may not be in vogue with many promoters but his experience is vast and should not be ignored. “The secret, if there is one, is in the preparation. You can’t take short cuts with preparing a good track. The weather gets in the way and you have to find a way around that but it comes down to good old hard work. I like tracks to have lots of grip – I just can’t get on with these tracks that have been tyre packed to death. Watering is also vital. Too little and you’ve got a dust bowl, too much and the racing becomes processional. It’s a fine line but a good track man has to know his track and its surface so well. You can’t just pitch up on race day and run the grader around and hope for the best. You’ve got to work on it throughout the year. Build up the surface layer by layer and then read it like a book from week to week.”

As we look to the coming season and British riders once again find themselves only seeded through to the Grand Prix series, what does Punch believe is missing from our set up in the UK? “Simple. We need more training tracks and more ex riders and riders to run them. The Scandinavian and Polish riders have so much more opportunity to learn their skills when they are young. Our youngsters are pitched in with a “sink or swim” attitude. They don’t get a chance to work on their riding in a non pressurised manner.”

2006-11-24T00:58:00.000-08:00

Somewhere over the rainbow…

First of all, a service announcement … “Mick, click here for the all singing, all colour version of the Blunsdon Blog.”

The weather forecast was awful but the day started well with beautiful clear blue skies. The rain arrived later before the sun re-appeared and a glorious rainbow lit up the sky. Did the end of the rainbow lie somewhere near to the site for the proposed new stadium? Was it a portent of things to come?

Work continued on the safety fence this week and featured another of the backroom boys whose work is often overlooked but whose contributions are invaluable.

Mick, from Swindon Pressure Cleaning Ltd, is the man who blasts away the dirt from the air fences each week. During the season Mick is always at the track first thing on a Thursday (race day) morning, to pressure wash the air bags and the advertising hoardings. Mick is a great speedway fan and has a wealth of stories and anecdotes about speedway at Blunsdon. When the air fence was first introduced at Blunsdon it seems that it was cleaned with buckets of water and brushes – a daunting task. Mick has been cleaning the fence for the past two years and does a marvellous job.

Our major task for the day is to clean as many of the fence panels from turns three and four before the rain comes. The entire air fence has to be sent back to the manufacturers for a service over the close season and they have a history of rejecting air fences that have not been cleaned properly. We link up the air fence panels in the car park and Mick begins the task of clearing the shale and slime. As if the mud on the outside of the panels was not bad enough, much of it has found its way inside the panels and has clogged up the Velcro fastenings.

Gerald, Punch and Mick continue with the cleaning while I drill out the rivets from the remaining kick boards. We are still having to rely upon our own tools after last week’s break in. There is little chance of us being able to get the stolen tools back so until replacements have been found we have to rely upon our own personal kit.

The sun stays out and helps to dry the cleaned panels. Out on the track Gerald has begun the massive task of blading some of the shale back from the kick boards. The result is a slushy surface and there is little we can do until the sun begins to dry some of it out.

Mick finishes the panels and then passes the pressure washer over our cars. I can’t remember seeing my white Peugeot looking so smart.

By the afternoon the surface of the track has been sufficiently dried to allow us to venture out with big motorway blade. Punch and Gerald are of the opinion that the surface is perfect for blading. The dampness in the surface has made its way down to the sub layers and the shale should cut evenly and easily. If the track is too dry the blade skims the surface but makes little real impact. The one drawback with our present planning is that the storm clouds are massing and its clear that rain on the bladed material will turn the whole surface into a morass.

Gerald starts work on the back straight entering turn three and the blade cuts down two or three inches. He pushes the material into turn three and returns to cut more away to even the back straight. As the season progresses more and more shale is graded away from the corners and down onto the main straights. This is unavoidable and happens mostly during grading mid meeting when the surface on the corners is cut as the back tyres struggle to grip. The excess is then collected by the graders and gradually builds up on the straights.

Punch follows Gerald with a tractor to distribute the shale more evenly and also to begin to pack down the loose material. Everything is going smoothly and then the rain starts to fall. The temperature drops dramatically and the whole scene becomes dark and gloomy. We work on for as long as we can but are soon soaked to the skin. By the time that we get the blade and the tractor off the track the surface is riven with rivulets from the dog track.

It seems that we will continue working each week up until Christmas. Plans are afoot to finish the fence panels and get them shipped off to AirTeck and a small digger is ordered so that we can dig a trench across turn one to carry a drainage pipe from the dog track to the main drain on the in field. Hopefully this will end the problems that we have suffered on turn 1.

Talk turns to the plans for the new stadium. At this stage it appears that speedway is to be included after the remarkable support campaign at the tale end of last season when the whole future of the sport in the Swindon area was thrown into doubt. Certainly the track will be smaller than the present one. The consensus amongst the three of us is that we’d like a track similar to Somerset’s but with slightly longer straights. One thing that we are in complete agreement upon is the need to build in drainage right from the start. Too many tracks have been constructed in the middle of stadia with no consideration as to how to get excess water away from the surface and out of the stadium. We must make sure that an efficient drainage system is put in place between greyhound and speedway tracks.

By the time that we are finished putting away all of the machinery the sun has come out and a beautiful rainbow has appeared. Gerald breaks into song – he claims its from the Wizard of Oz. Punch and I are unconvinced. We contemplate telling him to stick to track preparation and to forget about a career in musicals, but he’s happy with what’s been done so we leave him to his howlings!

An air of despondency ...

2006-11-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

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.

Time for some serious research

2006-11-09T23:19:00.000-08:00

Remember to visit the Blunsdon Blog web site for the full colour version and lots, lots more speedway related materials.

It’s a quiet week at the track this week and a chance to get some serious research done and dusted. Gerald will be back next week so it’s unlikely that I’ll get another chance before Christmas – rumour has it that he has a number of little projects for Punch and me to work on. My back is going into spasm just thinking about it.

Anyway, back to musings on the past with an emphasis upon the tracks themselves rather than riders, stadia and promotions.

As has been recorded in many other forums, the first British speedway meeting was held at High Beech on an old and largely neglected cycle track somewhere behind the King’s Oak public house near Epping Forest in Essex. Historians lead us to believe that it was a Cambridge undergraduate, one Lionel Wills, who came up with the concept having witnessed speedway and dirt track racing in Australia two years before.

In front of an estimated 20,000 crowd, most of whom were penned in behind a sturdy rope barrier on the centre green, the first racers were an assortment of road and trials bike riders together with two Australians, who had sampled the fledgling sport in their own back yard in the two years previous.

A programme of 50 races and 40 riders guaranteed a spectacle for the crowd. The originally planned 5 lap races were cut, after a break for luncheon, to 3 lap sprints so that the entire event could be completed before darkness fell.

The bikes were a real mixture of stripped down road bikes including a 490cc Norton, a 344cc Coventry Eagle and a 493cc Sunbeam. Many riders had simply resorted to removing mudguards and headlamps – anything to reduce weight and increase speed.

The first rider to officially complain about the track surface appears to have been one of the Australians (the xenophobe in me is tempted to add “what a surprise”). Billy Galloway complained that the hard cinder track was simply too hard for proper “broadsliding” and that what was needed was a “looser dirt surface” like the ones he’d raced on at home.

Records show that a “dirt track” meeting had been held near Manchester in 1927 on a 440 yard circuit covered with cinders purloined from the local power station. From the records that remain of that meet it would seem that the cinders were, again, packed too hard to allow any form of sliding.

But High Beech had sown the seeds and tracks appeared throughout 1928. Audenshaw near Manchester held a meeting on 3rd March followed by White City, who opened their 440 yard track on 16th June. On 4th August 1928 the fledgling Swindon Club opened its circuit at the Swindon Autodrome, on land near Gorse Hill in Swindon. Under the watchful eye of Mr W J Roper, the 356 yard cinder track provided a base in the town for racing for two years before closing down.

In the period between 1928 and 1949 (an auspicious year in the history of speedway – trust me) a number of different surfaces were tried to try to encourage “broadsliding” as the Aussies had it. Cinders were found to be very difficult to handle – too much packing and the track became like a road racing circuit – too little packing and the riders found it impossible to slide. The fans had cause to complain when tracks were too loose – they ended up wearing the track after the first couple of races!

Oxford opened their track in 1939 on a “sandy soil surface”. Alf Elliott, a rider, was charged with the laying of the new track. A concrete starting area was laid during the period that the track closed (between June 1941 and April 1949). This “development” had painful repercussions for the captain of the 1950 Oxford team, Harry Saunders. Whilst practising for the forthcoming season, Saunders “looped” on the concrete whilst attempting a “start” and sustained significant back injuries, sufficient to rule him out for some time.

In 1949 the Abbey Stadium was built atop Blunsdon Hill on the outskirts of Swindon. It featured a 410 yard cinder track and opened its doors to racing on 23rd July 1949 when some 8000 spectators witnessed the first meeting, against the old foe from down the road in Oxford. Whilst the spectacle was impressive, the track surface was swiftly changed to shale in time for a meeting on 27th August, the same year. Swindon legend Bob Jones set the lap record of 77.6 seconds.

Whilst the track surface remained largely unaffected for a number of years the addition of floodlights drew great interest. 10,000 people crammed into the Abbey Stadium for the first floodlit speedway match in the town in 1950.

That the first rained off fixture was on 11th August 1951, a full 65 meetings after the first night, is either a testament to the marvellous drainage at the surface or an indication of divine intervention (perhaps there really is a God, and perhaps he really is a Swindon Robins fan) – “thou shalt not rain on a Saturday night in Swindon.”

But all good things come to an end and the stadium authorities realised the Blunsdon bowl could be used for more than just speedway purposes. The first “midget car” meeting was held on the track on 11th October 1952. Greyhound racing (bite your tongue – don’t think it, speak it or write about it) started on 1st November of the same year whilst Stock Cars, the scourge of the speedway track, made their presence felt on 25th September 1954.

Bob Jones’s track record had been gradually eroded by the time that Barry Briggs reduced it to 72 seconds in 1959. This was no mean time, especially since the track was larger than it is today. During the winter of 1959 the Swindon track was altered, reducing its size from 410 yards to the present day 395 yards (363 metres).

The first sub 70 second track record was set by Swede Christer Lofqvist on 30th June 1973, his 69.8 time equalled by the great Anders Michanek during the second half of the same meeting.

Phil Crump set a new standard in a meeting on 22nd July 1979 and, during a season that boasted an astonishing 37 home meetings on the Blunsdon shale, ex British World Champion Peter Collins equalled it. Erik Gundersen smashed the lap record on the 26th August 1985, taking it to 65.2 seconds before the “Main Dane”, Hans Nielsen recorded the first sub 65 second lap in September 1990.

Somewhat surprisingly it was Swindon’s New Zealander Gary Allan who would take the time still lower and there it stayed until the Aussies took over again, Ryan Sullivan lowering it still further in a benefit meeting before Leigh Adams and, this year, Jason Crump, sliced further fractions of a second away.

But the fastest man around the pacey Blunsdon circuit was New Zealander Bruce Cribb. He took seconds off the existing time, but he did have an advantage – he was riding an exhibition race on an ice racing bike, equipped with the ferocious spikes on both front and back tyres – fabulous grip allied to awesome acceleration.

I fought the fence ... and the fence won!

2006-11-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

Our second post season working day is complete and the aches have yet to appear, but a black eye is well on the way. While trying to disentangle two pieces of the fence one of the hard plastic pipes caught me under the eye with a real whack - should look pretty good in the morning!

A beautiful, if rather chilly day contrasted with last week's leaden skies and blustery showers.

This time there was only four of us to take down the air fences on turns three and four. Because the track at Blunsdon is on a slope, turns 3 and 4 are always drier than 1 and 2.

On hand today is Brian "no problem" Cox. Brian was awarded a special prize at this year's End of Season Bash. If a job needs doing, Brian is always there. He is certainly one of the "unsung heroes" at Blunsdon. During the season we put up the centre green banners first thing on a race day.

Later Brian reappears to act as host to the special guests and patrons. Speedway needs more people like Brian Cox. Each track will have its own "Brian" working away in the background making sure that everything works smoothly.

Track Curator, Gerald Richter is away on a well earned holiday so his number two Rod "Punch" Ford is the man in charge this week. Punch, to his friends, has been working at the Blunsdon track for 36 years and for much of that time has been one of the curators of the track.

When I first started helping out on a regular basis at the track I was warned not to try to match Punch in work load. I'm sure he wont mind, but he is in his 60's yet works with the effort of a 40 year old. A wealth of experiences built up over the years ensures that his opinion is one that you dismiss at your peril. A great bloke whose contribution to Swindon Speedway is more than significant!

Shirley is an invaluable member of the track crew at Blunsdon. During the season she can be found brushing out the pits and making sure that the changing rooms and showers are in tip top condition for the riders. In addition Shirley looks after the track staff, making sure that we are provided with tea and coffee.

At times, she must pull out her hair in frustration - whenever the kettle has boiled and the tea made, we are always to be found at the other end of the stadium. Too often we appear when the tea is cold. Despite this, Shirley always maintains a happy and bright countenance.

The first task is to detach the air fence from the safety fence. This is done relatively easily - at least the catches aren't buried under inches of slime as they were on turns 1 and 2.

Sadly, our euphoria is soon rocked - the kick boards themselves are deep in slime.

Once we've located the kick board (made of thick rubber) we have to find the rivet and then use a drill to drill it out. Trying to move the air fence with the kick board attached is simply too much and there is a danger that the weight of slime on the kick board will be sufficient to tear the bottom of the air bag.

The air fences for turns 3 and 4 have yet to be cleaned so they are "stored" at the back of the pits prior to being washed down.

It takes two, sometimes three of us to manhandle the sections into the bucket of a JCB so that they can be carried off the track.

Lunch is taken early - the job is taking longer than we anticipated.

The rivets on the kick boards have rusted and fused and the drills are making hard work of removing them. Every so often we come across a hasty repair job, nearly always using a strong cable tie. These are a joy to remove - so much easier and quicker.

As we leave our staff room we march through the pits, past the piles of washed fence sections from the week before. Even though they were carefully jet washed down they will still need to be cleaned again to remove the last vestiges of mud and slime before they can be sent back to the manufacturers for close season maintenence.

The fence has actually been sitting lower than the edge of the track surface and the trough is now collecting water as it seeps from the greyhound track.

It's too wet to try to spread the saturated shale although we know that this must be done soon before the really cold weather comes and it binds into hard lumps that are of little use to man nor beast!

Punch takes the tractor out, pulling a harrow, attached by a length of chain to the blade. This will help to even out the surface of the track and break up any clumps of shale that have been disturbed as we have been working. The edge of the track will have to wait - it's far too wet to do anything with.

We have completed our work for the day. The entire fence has been removed and transported to the pits.

It still needs to be jet washed thoroughly before it can be sent away for repair / overhaul, and that will be a long, wet and, probably, cold task.

A trip to turn one shows us another cold, wet and dirty job for the future. The main drain is clogged with clay. The pipe, and all the surrounding gravel in the soak away, will have to be dug out and cleaned. I can hardly wait.

Blunsdon Blog goes world wide!

2006-10-31T11:38:00.000-08:00

Not only has the Blunsdon blog been featured in the News section of the Swindon Robins Speedway site, but it has also gone world wide and in colour.

Although I will continue to post details of our work on the track at Swindon here, I will also be adding it, and pictures (ooh ... aah) in our new web site together with a number of other track related materials.

The web site has been donated by our great friends at Tattinger Marsh (thanks Neil). The address is a bit of a mouthful so it's probably best to click the link below and then bookmark it so you can follow the "everyday saga of track working folk."

The Blunsdon Blog Web Site

To those who have already commented on the blog - thanks. It's great to get positive feedback.

The next posting will be after the day's work on Thursday 2nd November.

Shaleshifter

The Blunsdon Blog - or up to our knees in mud!

2006-10-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

And so another season is done and dusted. The end of season farewells have been made, the fireworks have woken every dog within a 5 mile area of Blunsdon and the end of season dinner dance has passed off without controversy. Job done!

But no.

“So what will you do with all those Thursdays until March when the next season begins?” It’s an all too common comment and it is the reason for the creation of “The Blunsdon Blog”.

In order that we can dispel views that track work only happens miraculously half an hour before each meeting, the track staff at Blunsdon are going to keep a diary in words and images of our winter work to ensure that, come Press and Practice Day in March, our super septet have the kind of racing surface that will once again emphasise that Swindon really does put the “Speed” into “speedway”.

Ok, so we all know about the first bend problems that have dogged us in 2006. But what causes those problems and why has it been so hard to remedy? Hopefully, through following the Blunsdon Blog throughout the winter months you’ll have a better idea as to the problems that track staff up and down the country face whilst trying to provide our super stars with the track surface they’ll enjoy.

Thursday 26th October
We gather at the track at 9am – Gerald, Punch, Adam, John, Brian, my 12 year old son David and me.

Our task for the day, and for next Thursday, is to remove the air fence, wash it down and then transport it to the pits. Sounds relatively straightforward. If only!

The air fence at Blunsdon is large, over 40 separate pieces, and it is coated with the wet shale from the last meeting and sits on a track surface more resembling The Somme after incessant rain over the last week.

The first task is to inflate the fence on turns 1 and 2 and then jet wash the worst of the shale and slime off. This makes the track even wetter and we slither and slide around under leaden skies gazing at the grey, rain bearing clouds that are being blown our way. We lug two air pumps down to the bottom of the track and begin the inflation process. Punch (Rod Ford) has the pressure washer ready while Gerald (Richter) uses a blade behind one of the tractors to try to move some of the shale and clay from the kick boards at the bottom of the air fence.

My feet are already wet – the slime is over the height of my working shoes. When the worst has been washed off the air fence, Adam and I clamber over the swiftly deflating fence to try to remove the clips that attach the air fence to the safety fence. Sadly, the slime is worse under the fences and we are forced to dig our way down through inches of slime to locate the catches.

One hour, and several broken finger nails, later we have managed to detach the air fence from the safety fence. Job done!

The master plan is to remove the kick boards (lengths of rubber attached to the bottom of the fence and designed to prevent riders from slipping under the air fence and striking / injuring themselves against the main fence). I can remember my first task at Blunsdon in March when I had to rivet the kick boards in place. Now they had to be removed. Each rivet (and there are 20 to a section) has to be drilled out before the section of air fence can be dragged to the centre green where it will be inflated again and washed for a second time before being rolled up and transported back to the pits.

Some of the rivets pop off; most, however, resist our efforts until they have been drilled out completely. By this time we are all smothered in brown clay and the rain clouds are overhead.

We repair to the staff room for a warming cup of coffee, beautifully prepared by the 8th member of the team, Shirley, who has come over specially to make sure that the supply of hot drinks is maintained for the bedraggled and be-muddied crew.

By lunch we had actually only managed to clean 5 sections properly and morale was low. However, a cup of tea, some sandwiches and good humoured banter soon lifted our spirits and we set about the afternoon’s work with gusto under a beautifully clear sky.

Brian (Cox) , David (my son) and I disengage each length of fence and drag it across the track to the centre green where Gerald and Adam inflate it. Punch and John (Keeping) operate the jet washers. As soon as each length is washed it takes four of us to manhandle it onto the low loader. Drilling out the rivets has flattened both batteries for the electric drill so the last five sections have to be dragged off the track complete with kickboards – they weigh a ton!

By half past three we have the entire air fence from turns one and two safely stored in the pits area. Turns three and four can wait until next Thursday.

Gerald is taking a well deserved holiday and will be away for the next two Thursdays which means that the immediate future of the track rests in the hands of Punch. Unable to leave the track looking as it does (like a section from a World War 1 battlefield) Gerald decides to run around the track with the grader and I am tasked with following on a small tractor to tyre pack the surface a little in case the monsoons strike the track and wash it all away.

By half four we make our farewells and begin our various ways home. Dave and I fought for the rights to the first bath and the best of the hot water – he won!

And so ends our first day of easy living! If only my back didn’t hurt so much I’d laugh.