What a difference a win makes! The Robins have been under a lot of pressure recently with a series of below par results in the Elite League and some of the riders have, by their own admission, simply added to that pressure. How good it was, therefore, to show the doubters just what this team are capable of with a comprehensive defeat of a Belle Vue team led by Messrs Karlsson and Andersen. The margin of victory, 22 points, also took into account two lots of tactical rides by Belle Vue and was achieved without the services of Greg Zengota, whose rides were taken up by R/R and only amassed 5 +2 when the young Pole has been scoring much more freely at Blunsdon.
I was particularly pleased to see young Morten Risager scoring freely. His 8+2 tally was achieved with the dash that we saw at the end of last season when he was introduced to the Robins team late on. That many of his points were garnered from gate 4 was even more impressive since it has been his gating that has been letting him down of late. Morten is a very pleasant, articulate and polite young man who has always made a point of acknowledging the track staff whenever he can. and it has been hard to see him under so much pressure recently. Let's hope that he can maintain that form and cement his place firmly in the Robins septet for the foreseeable future.
Anyway, back to matters track side.
The promised heavy rain forecast for the Wednesday evening didn't really materialise in Malmesbury, but 16 miles away in Blunsdon it more than made up for it. Apparently roads were flooded and the rainfall was more monsoon than shower.
And it showed. For the first time this year, in fact since we dug the kickboards down into the track surface, sand and water damage could be seen on the hallowed Abbey shale.
So heavy was the rain that it was copious amounts of sand down to the kickboards and then burst under the boards producing "blooms" of sand on the track on the back straights and mini ravines in the shale on the corners. Fortunately the drainage system had coped admirably with the water and the track was merely wet as opposed to being sloppy.
Short on numbers this week (just Ron, Punch, Mark and myself) we started by lifting the staging that the greyhound traps sit on during dog meetings off the track. Made of either steel or solid wood, they are very heavy indeed for three gentlemen of a particular age (old) and a youngster (Mark). Once the stagings were moved we were able to lift the safety fence inserts into place and then set about trying to skim the sand off the shale. Readers of the blog over the years will know that while excess water can harm a track, at least it doesn't leave irreparable damage - but sand does. Once it mixes with the shale it prevents that clay content of the shale from binding and the material becomes useless, turning to a slime if it gets wet and dust if it dries.
The banners were in a real state this week. Last week's very hot weather meant that we had to put a lot of water on the track to keep the shale moisture. However, the sudden drop in temperature in the half hour before the start of the meeting meant that the moisture in the track was drawn to the surface and we had a thick coating of wet shale on the kickboards and most of the banners on turns 3 and 4 within the first three heats.
While Mark and Mick Richards cleaned said banners, I spent half an hour with John Keeping, a local haulier and large motor mechanic as he tried to coax some life into the dormant brakes on Jemima.. The master cylinder fluid reservoir was completely dry when we opened it up. To make matters worse, the thin pipes which would take fluid to the brakes were clogged up. We put some oil in and cleaned as much gunk out as possible but will just have to wait for the oil to ease up the blockages and work its way down to the brakes before we can do anything else.
The new parking area for equipment that we created back behind the pits over the winter is certainly proving invaluable - it means that we can move equipment around so easily and means we must have one of the larger working areas in at any league track in the country.,
With the sun now beating down and the Factory 50 liberally applied to all exposed body parts (that's a dreadful phrase but I can't think of an alternative so it will have to do) we spent the late morning ensuring that we got the moisture content right. In heavy drying circumstances we find that the best way to keep water in the track is to "fluff" up the surface with the wonder wheel or the hydraulic harrows. The former produces a layer of fine dirt that the water can penetrate and then is protected by from evaporation. The later grooves the track, allowing water to settle in the fine grooves and enhancing the chances of it soaking down rather than evaporating up!
But watering at a track which is banked and surrounded by a sand track higher than it is always fraught with difficulties.
While we struggle to get water into the rest of the track, we have to avoid watering various areas up near the air fences where water from the waterlogged sand track is percolating down, under the fence and then up through the shale. These areas, and there's one very bad one just before the pit gate, becomes very boggy very quickly. The air fence doesn't help us because it shades this wet area from the afternoon and evening sun.
Lunch is taken in the new refreshment carriage - emu and chips - with just the four of us joined by Terry and Wayne Russell. Conversation is varied from Swindon's chances at Wembley in the football play off final on Saturday to the vastly complex and convoluted rules governing team changes in speedway and why Swindon will be amongst the last to achieve the magical / mythical 12 matches after which changes are possible.
The afternoon is taken with putting up the rubber kickboards, hooking up the fencing and netting and securing the banners.
Ron rips the starts and the usual areas of the track on the insides of turns 2 and 4 and I use Jemima to lightly pack them down.
Dale, Simon Stead's mechanic, is the first to arrive and sets up his bikes in the pits while Mick Hunt, who has rushed straight from his work as a manager of a local Tesco's store to clear and sweep the pit areas.
By the time that the white line has been swept and cleaned and the referee has arrived, the pits are a hive of activity. Hans Andersen sets up his bikes in the away pits and is happy for me to take a photograph of his immaculate looking bikes. He spots my Rune Holta hat and asks how I have come to got one. When I explain he nods and then informs me that the man has been going like a bullet in Sweden and could do a great job here. I agree but know it wont happen.
Changes at reserve mean that Belle Vue will be tracking young Josh Grajczonek and Leigh Lanham while Swindon will use Jordan Frampton and the returning Thomas H Jonasson. Certainly, one of the reasons for Swindon's recent run of defeats has been the absence of our little "pocket rocket" Thomas. In no ways is this a criticism of those who have taken his place (Justin Sedgmen has been great) but Thomas, who has missed an entire month due to a ban imposed by the Swedish governing body for a transgression last year, has been quite superb. The lads down on turn 1 describe how he fights for every square inch of turn 1 at the starts and refuses to give way even when surrounded by some of the more experienced campaigners in the Elite League.
His green and white livery is unusual in speedway terms - each time I see his bikes I'm reminded of dear old Simon Wigg - bless him - who always favoured green.
Further up the home pits are Morten Risager's bikes and those of Simon Stead. Both were new to Swindon last year but while Simon has been simply superb - definitely putting himself in the running for a Team GB slot for the World Cup - Morten has suffered a real crisis of confidence. I would love to see him do well at Swindon and remain confident that if he could get over this hurdle he could silence the critics and show his worth in the team.
The Belle Vue septet take to the track for their team walk. This is a very different, and much more potent force, than we saw in the 'A' fixture earlier in the season when the Icelandic volcano prevented their top two, Scandinavian stars, Hans Andersen and Peter Karlsson, from appearing.
With the top two supported by James Wright (who rides here so well after his year's stay two seasons ago) and a revitalised Leigh Lanham, who simply couldn't get round Blunsdon up until a year or so ago, Patrick Hougaard and Tobi Kroner, who both have ridden well in the past, it is only the young Aussie Josh Grajczonek who appears weak, and let's face it, there are very few "weak" Aussies in British racing.
Another defeat for the Robins is unthinkable but deep down we know that another performance like some recently and we will be on the wrong side of a defeat.
Once again comments have been made about the so called "lack of dirt" on the Swindon track. Down in the shale storage area this is given the lie!
The two piles of shale, one the very red shale from Edinburgh and the other the harder, less red material, are diminishing fast.
Back in March we took delivery of 60 tons of shale. The two photographs above show it being delivered in two enormous transporters. But now about 50 tons of that material has gone - no, it has not been stolen - it's been spread on the track. So where does it all go to?
Some will have been broken down and then washed away by rain while some will have been blasted over the greyhound track. But most of it is simply turned to powder by the power of the spinning rear tyres of the speedway bikes as they rip away at the surface. We were certainly able to bring a lot of material back from the boards during and after the meeting but the fact remains that a lot of material is spread on the track each week to ensure that it gives just the right sort of surface for the high speed racing that we see at Swindon on a regular basis.
On a personal note, it was a pleasure to be able to work on the track with my son, Dave, for the first time during a meeting. Dave has given up many days over the last 5 years to help out at weekends and during school holidays but, until his 16 birthday last week, has never been able to assist during the actual running of a meeting on the centre green.
It's a blank Thursday coming up so we plan to do some more routine maintenance work and prepare for the visit of Peteborough on the 10th June.
