Monday morning and it's a Sky day - not only are the skies beautifully clear, but the people from Sky are here at Blunsdon for the first time in 2010 to transmit the action from the Swindon v Coventry Elite League match. This means 2 meetings in 5 days for the track staff at Swindon, and to make matters worse, despite assurances given last Thursday to the contrary, there is a day time greyhound meeting to work around.
We're also very much down on track staff today. Arron will be away for the rest of the season, Roy will be in after he has finished his volunteers shift at a local village shop and while Mark has managed to re-schedule his shifts with Sainsbury's to give him this afternoon off he wont be up until then.
It's up to Punch and me to carry out all of the banners from last THursday and then peg them out on the centre green. A blustery and rather cold wind is sweeping around the Abbey and, unless they are pegged down, the banners simply take to the air.
It's all a bit of a rush because we know that we will have to leave the track at 10.30 and not return until nearly 2pm while the greyhound meeting goes ahead. Consequently, the air fence has to be left down and we have to break off from the banners to go out and soak the track - over three hours out in a potentially drying sun and wind will take a lot of water from the surface so we have to over water to counter the effects.
Mick Richards arrives to begin the cleaning process and we are joined by an out of breath Roy. We manage to clean nearly all the banners and most of the kickboards from turns 3 and 4 but I'll have to do the rest later on after the dog meeting.
The greyhound people are moving equipment around through the pits and making the final watering and adjustments to the greyhound track. From now until 2pm the speedway track staff have to work behind the pits and far out of the way of the greyhounds. This is a source of considerable frustration both for us and the Sky people, who are desperate to get on with their work of laying miles of cable and erecting the scaffolding for the main Sky studio and the various cameras dotted around the circuit. They are also anxious to get started laying the rails for a new camera that they will be trialling in advance of the British GP in July.
It is a chance for me to get the 7 air pumps out of store and check levels of oil and fuel. Bob Crowther, who used to look after their servicing, has retired and Paul Gibbs, who has taken over, has been ill, so I'm just a little worried about how the pumps will perform, especially since this meeting will be shown around the world!
The greyhound track is flooded - guess where all that water is going to end up in 6 hours time!
Punch makes his last round of watering of the speedway track and then we empty the centre green of all vehicles (including the mower that Ron has been racing around on) and start our work out back.
My first job is one set by Simon Stead last week. With no news on our new air fence (for turn 1 and 2) we are having to patch up ever last spare fence panel to keep us going. At the start of last week's meeting we had three serviceable air fence panels spare. After his unfortunate crash on turn 1 we were down to 2 again as his dirt deflector ripped a large section of the bottom of a panel out and produced another 7 separate punctures. Normally, with such damage, we would dispatch the bag back to the manufacturers for repair but with so few spares it's up to us to "patch and make do."
The first part of the job is to clean the offending areas. With such a large gash in the material I like to cable tie the edges together before gluing a patch over the top. It's a little like a surgeon stitching up a wound - a point made by a number of passing Sky technicians.
Once the edges are tied up a patch is cut from a spare roll of the material we have for these occasions. A special contact glue is applied to the bag and the patch and then allowed to dry until it is dry to the touch. The two pieces are then held together for about a minute until the glue binds. When this happens the repaired section is actually stronger than the original was.
The other punctures are more straightforward and require only cleaning, gluing and patching.
In between greyhound races, Clerk of the Course, Mick Hunt tries out our latest acquisition - a heavy duty vacuum cleaner. While he is no "Mrs Mop", and it is no "Dyson" it still collects up the dry sand that fills the pits and does a good job.
As soon as the last race is over and the dogs returned to their kennels, we rush out.
The first task is to bring the three wheeler out and pressure wash the rest of the kickboards that we ran out of time doing in the morning. While Mick and I do this, Mark puts out the air pumps and fires them up.
John Nobbs, who usually drives the tractor during the meeting, finds himself on the mower but still manages to finish off his cup of tea!
Punch helps Mark and I to hook up the catch netting and then we settle down to pin the air fence to the safety fence. That done, we turn to the banners. With the help of Ernie Poole, we get these up in record time (about 90 minutes). Each one is pinned at the end and then has its tension adjusted by means of a bungee strap in the middle. This is version 55 of our system for holding the oversized banners up and it seems to work.
At 6 o'clock Mick Hunt is finally confirmed as being a "Safety hazard" zone as he wraps himself in a red and white safety tape while trying to mark out an exclusion zone around the Sky studio perched high on turn 3.
Down on turn 1 we watch as the technicians from Sky finish off their work on a tracking camera that will follow the riders from the entrance of turn 1 right through to turn 2. It's all very hi-tech and makes some of our work look positively prehistoric!
The doves still haven't taken flight and resolutely stay on their nest above Simon Stead's pit bay, only moving when Dale fires up one of his engines. Even then, one only moves a couple of feet before alighting on an advertising banner.
Punch is playing in the workshop. We have a new pump for the smaller water tanker that we have been building for use during meetings. His problem is how to manufacture a system that will allow him to turn the water on and off from his tractor cab. He's in his element trying to sort the problem so we leave him to his own devices.
In the pits we have the usual managed mayhem that always occur when 14 speedway riders, 28 bikes and numerous mechanics, managers, promoters, press etc. congregate in a small space.
With no Thomas Jonasson (he's still on his one month ban from Svemo) we welcome young Justin Sedgmen to fill his role again alongside Cory Gathercole, an all Aussie reserve partnership.
As we enter the last hour before the tapes go up Mark and I venture out onto the track in the three wheeler to clean off the boards for a final time and to clean the white line. With a little practice, getting into and out of the pits no longer presents any problems and by reducing the gearing ratio down to "Tortoise" setting, the engine now affords us considerable stopping power.
It is as we make our way down the main straight that we meet up with Meeting Co-ordinator Dave Robinson (at Sky meetings there are always 2 referees in action - one to referee the meeting and the other to ensure that it all runs to Sky's tight schedule.
Mr Robinson steps out in front of the three wheeler - not a bright idea given our relative lacking of stopping power - to point out a sharp piece of metal which is sticking up at right angles to the track right on the racing line.
He's bemused by what it is - but I recognise it straight away. During the later stages of the season opening Bob Kilby Memorial meeting I had heard what I took to be a shotgun blast as one of the tractors with a grader went past. Further investigation showed that a square piece of lead about 5" in size and half an inch thick, had been dislodged by the blade. This piece of lead had covered a circular hole into which a large fence post had been located during the days way back in the past when stock cars had raced at Blunsdon. In the intervening years this hole and its cover, like numerous others around the Blunsdon track, had been covered with layers of shale and forgotten about. Until, that is, we had re-contoured the back straight and removed said layers.
On the occasion of the Kilby meeting we had to dig out a hole, sink the plate back in, cover it with shale and then drive the tractor over it to flatten it down. Now, just 55 minutes from the start of a televised match, it had re-appeared, or at least a corner of it had re-appeared.
Mark went and fetched Punch and a sledge hammer while the world and his mate congregated around it. We told Rory Schlein that if we couldn't fix it in time we'd put a traffic cone over it and he could ride around it. I think he thought we were being serious!
Once again, we dug out the plate, flattened it with the sledgehammer and then covered it with a combination of new and old shale and then packed it down firmly. Nobody reported any problems so I guess we got away with it but Punch and I will be doing some restorative work on it when we go up on Thursday.
With a thumbs up from both referees and no reported problems anywhere else we waited for Scott Nicholls to make his assessment of the track. In the end we were all disappointed that he only gave it 69% and thought it too slick. Think again Scottie, and those who criticised it on the fans forum - there was loads of dirt out there - I know, I spent the evening shoveling it away from the fence on turns 3 and 4. And the racing was pretty spectacular and much better than a lot I've seen on TV this year.
At this stage it's worth addressing a comment on the forum about the track. Someone made a point that if the track was so good, why did it constantly need grading throughout a meeting. The answer is simply that it needs grading throughout a meeting because it is so good! If we had followed the pattern of other tracks and gone for bald and slick there would be nothing for us to blade and grade during a meeting. The fact is that because Blunsdon is so big, banked and fast the pressures put upon the surface are far greater than elsewhere. Inevitably large amounts of shale are thrown up from the track as the rear wheels bite as bikes enter and drive through the corners. You cannot keep on allowing more and more of the surface to be thrown up like this - we'd been down to cinders in a matter of laps and no one would be able to get a bike around. We have a hard base to protect the track and keep firm foundations and then lots and lots of shale on top of it which is graded back regularly throughout the meeting. When someone of Mr Adams' status says that the track is perfect after his first ride and again later on in the meeting you tend to take notice.
As we take up our positions on the centre green it is clear that a combination of holidays and illness have taken their toll on track staff numbers - please let us have an incident free match! I say a silent prayer before each race that no one will plunge in to the air fences and take out a panel. Nightmare scenario is heat 11 (just one of a completed match in speedway terms) and four riders plunge in to the air fence and damage four panels - we only have three spares!!
When Mads clatters into the gate fence panel I hold my breath, dash out and check to see if damage has been done. I feel immediately guilty when I see the fence is OK yet realise that Mads is still down winded. When he plunges into a panel on turn 3 later on it is clear that the situation is more serious. The rubber kickboard has been shredded and, as I frantically pull up the bottom of the fence, a gaping hole is letting out copious amounts of air. Mick Hunt is out behind me with Dave Robinson nand one of the Sky producers - no pressure then. Is it OK? Can we continue? We can't afford a delay!! It's the "devil and the deep blue sea" situation that I've dreaded.
We continue but I have to turn up both pumps on turn 3 to compensate for the air that is gushing out of the hole. And it is then that the pump nearest to the pits on turn 3 decides to play up. It runs for a while then simply cuts out. In the end we have to have a member of the track staff standing over it to start it up as soon as it fails. The last three heats are a nightmare and it's a huge relief when it's all over and I find out that ... we've lost! Didn't see that one coming!
While the enquiry into why we've lost goes on elsewhere, we pack up. Punch and I lock up and resolve to come up for a morning's work on Thursday, even though there's no meeting - the pumps need an oil change, the grass will need a cutting again before the next meeting and I need to get that panel repaired.
