I quote from the official Swindon Robins web site (courtesy of Chris Seaward) :
"The Mad Wellie's Jovial Monks pub was the setting for the 2010 Pit Crew's Dart Championship.
Frank Ebdon was obviously not officiating as the meeting got off to a very late start.
There was bravado, time wasting and some cases of foul riding but on the whole, a night of fun and friendly rivalry ensued; leading up to the hotly contested final where the favoured Pit Crew were beaten by the hard working, win at all cost, Track Staff who had bought in a "ringer" (or should that be a raker) to make sure of a smooth ride in the final."
The Championship Trophy was displayed in the new Tea Room for all to see and was the subject of much conversation throughout the day.
Another fine day at the Abbey as we prepared for the meeting with our nemesis team from last year, Wolverhampton.
The series of very warm and dry days had rendered the track very dry and almost dusty so watering was started early on. Despite the dryness moisture was still seeping through under the bottom of the air fences from the greyhound track. The photograph above left shows dry shale on the right but an increasing area of very damp material adjacent to the yellow skirt at the bottom of the fence.
The main task for the morning was the cleaning of the air fence banners from the week before. They had been liberally coated with the wet stuff during the defeat at the hands of Lakeside and Mick Richards was less than happy at the prospect of trying to prise the sticky stuff off the 40 odd banners.
My concern, once again, lay in how we were to secure the banners to the fence. The plan for using Bungee clips to clip the banners directly to the wire safety fence was a good one until it came to taking the banners off at the end of the meeting. Many slipped off, some flew off while others just disappeared.
The consequence of these loses was that we were desperately short of the clips. An idea had been fermenting in my head for the past week about using a nylon rope to literally stitch the banners to the safety fence - now was the perfect time to put that plan into action.
Along with Mark, Roy, Arron and Adam we embarked upon the new plan. I chose turn 4 as being the perfect place to start our experiment - not a great amount of shale is thrown up against this area of the air fence and it is the shortest run of air fence panels. What started out as being a good plan soon descended into farce. The rope tangled almost immediately and then resisted our attempts to pull it through from panel to panel. In the end we resorted to threading it through an eyelet and then a square in the safety fence and then pulling all of the excess rope through before starting again. It was truly tortuous and we soon abandoned the concept of a single piece of rope for a whole bend, choosing to cut it into three sections and tieing it off at regular intervals. Over an hour later the banners were up and ready and, although it looked good and the rope held the banners firmly in place throughout the meeting, it was dismissed as being simply too long and convoluted. Ah well, back to the drawing board.
At a time when we really didn't need anything else to go wrong ... it did. One of the air pumps on turn 3 decided to play up, running for a few minutes and then cutting out again. We tried everything to get it to stay on but it took our new pump mechanic Paul Gibbs some time to cure the problem late on in the day and a little too close to "tapes up" for my peace of mind.
Working on the track during a meeting has its obvious and less obvious dangers. Clearly you need to keep your eyes and ears open for fast approaching bikes - that is obvious. Less obvious is the need to keep clear of the tractors when they are grading, especially when they have the mesh behind which tends to whip about like a fish tail.
The tractor drivers have to operate at speed, partly because they are given a relatively short time in which to re grade the track between races and partly because if they went slower there is an increased chance that large lumps of shale will be left around the track, just what the riders don't want. So hammering round at some speed, with heavy equipment (blade, wonder wheel, mesh etc.) on the back, the drivers have some job to do. Given also that they tend to be looking behind them at what they are doing to the track rather than where they are going, and the job becomes a nightmare not only for tractor drivers but also for the track staff out on the track.
It is vitally important that we know where they are going and that they know where we are at all times. Communication is the key here. A couple of changes to the modus operandi recently have left track staff diving for cover and on at least one occasion I have found myself pinned to the air fence when a tractor that should have deviated away from me early in a corner just kept coming!
Keith Johnson (ic turns 1 and 2), John Nobbs (tractor driver), Ron (track curator), Mick Hunt (Clerk of the course) and I have to be agreed on how the gradings are to take place.
The regime is basically that John will drive out of the pits and will adopt a course down the middle of the track on his first lap, allowing track staff to drag material back from the boards. His second lap will run along the boards on the back and front straights (collecting loose material with the blade) before veering up to the entrances to turns 1 and 3 and moving material from the first third of the air fence before spreading it down across the track towards the white line. On the next pass around the corners he will collect the material from the mid parts of the turns and on his final lap he will drive right around the boards pulling back any other material.
In the meantime the track staff work away at areas they know (or think they know) will be safe. This week was the first time that the schedule all went to plan - no close encounters and very few piles of un spread shale.
The talk in the tea room in the hour before the meeting starts is entirely about the success of the Track Staff Darts Team and the trophy that is proudly displayed to everyone who comes by for a cuppa!
5pm and the bikes start to appear. Thomas H Jonasson has been around since mid morning and Daryl, Simon Stead's new mechanic has been preparing his young son's cut down speedway bike so that he can get some early practice in on the small track in the middle of the circuit.
Early entries in the "most beautiful bike" category are those of Freddie Lindgren and our own Greg Zengota. Freddie's bikes are being looked after by the legendary Billy, so long Leigh Adams' mechanic but now full time with Freddie. I have to admit that we are all missing Billy's "larger than life" character in the pits here at Swindon.
Greg's two bikes are immaculately presented, the spare one set outside the entrance to the changing rooms.
Now occupying the so called "jinxed" slot in the home pits is Cory Gathercole, whose bike is adorned in the colours and logos of the Somerset Rebels, for whom Cory rides in the Premier League. With engines prepared by Ashley Holloway, there are great expectations surrounding our very popular and friendly young Aussie.
Further up, Leigh's Polish mechanic is working on one of his two bikes for the night.
Chunky, another of the legendary figures in pit lane here at Swindon, works away on Mads Korneliussen's bike while Tai Woffinden's machines are set up in the away pits, completely covered in logos and sponsorship.
These days I don't get to see much of Punch (Rod Ford). Time was we spent the entire day working as a pair but now my time with the air fences and kickboards and his time on the track itself mean we see each other rarely.
I'd like to think that Punch now gets the attention that he so richly deserves from the speedway fans that flock to our track. Without Punch, and others like him up and down the country, there would be no speedway for us to enjoy. This week Punch appears more chipper - we weren't sure how well he take to the loss of his beloved JCB (the one with the eccentric braking system).
And so to pit gate where we come across "The Brothers Grimm" - Andrew Reynolds, Mick Hunt and Clive Fisher. Really, they should know by now that it's not a good idea to be caught together in the pits when I'm around with the proper camera - caption time gents!!
Tonight we welcome our favourite referee back to The Abbey - Christina Turnbull. Christina is a delight to talk to, with the wonderfully broad Scottish accent and sense of fun. She is working with our young Polish trainee referee and spends some time chatting about matters to do, and not to do with speedway. I know she'll be reading this, so I'd better be careful, but she is always welcome to Blunsdon.
Big Al (Alan Tarrant) or DaVinci Al is on hand at the pit gate as is Edwin Hutchison, who now mans the red flag on turn 3. Edwin was contemplating a holiday with his family in Florida but has just told me that the holiday has been postponed until a date in May, as a consequence of the Icelandic volcano clouds, when he will have to shelve out an awful lot more money. Still, every Icelandic cloud has a silver lining - now he'll be with us for the next two home meetings.
Tractor drivers! They tell you how hard their job is, but a relaxing John Nobbs demonstrates the real truth as be sits back in his luxury cab, radio on (probably playing Heart Radio), cab door open.
As for the meeting, We spend nearly all of our time trying to scrape thick shale from the banners. So much is thrown up that the whole fence on turn 3 starts to sag under the weight.
The matter isn't helped when young
Thomas comes under pressure on the entry to turn 3 and slides off into the air fence, puncturing it with his foot rest. I am reluctant to ask for a change of air bag because of the difficulties extracting it so we cover over the hole and increase the pressure from the two pumps.
During the interval I spend the time down on the track buried under the air bag trying to pull the edges of the hole together with small cable ties while members of the track staff stand on guard to ward away errant tractor drivers. In the end the hole is closed but the entire bag will need removing and replacing next Thursday so that I can bring about a proper and lasting repair.
The meeting ends with a Swindon victory and there then follows an extended practice session, mainly featuring Greg Zengota, who threatens to carry on belting around the track until midnight until escorted off the track by Clerk of the Course Mick Hunt.
11pm and Punch and I sag into our chairs in Number 96. Neither of us is sure of the score tonight and frankly the racing, which has been universally hailed as good, has passed us by. I am covered with wet shale having tried to jet wash the kickboards and Punch is so tired he would willingly sleep in his chair.
And so ends another day in paradise! Hey Ho. Grand Prix approaching so it'll soon be time for Team Holta GB to don their caps and T shirts to cheer their hero on to victory.
