There are days when everything seems to go to plan and you feel really good about what you are doing! What a shame that Thursday was quite the opposite; a simply dreadful day at the track. A series of unconnected occurrences meant that we seemed to be working harder than ever and yet always seemed to be against the clock. In fact, so behind schedule were we at one stage that members of the track staff who had driven past the stadium during the day were actually actually ringing me up to check that there actually was a meeting at Blunsdon.
So how did a day that started under dark clouds become so bad?
Torrential rain on Monday and Tuesday had not helped matters. Everything had had a real dowsing and once again we had sand flumes blasted out across the track where significant amounts of water had built up against the kickboards and then burst, under pressure, under the boards and across the hallowed shale. It was also clear that we couldn't possibly inflate the air bags since each one was like a miniature swimming pool, full of rain water. Inflating before all of this has been suctioned off would have flooded the bends and jeopardised the entire meeting.
The rain had also prevented Roy from mowing the centre green on Wednesday so that had to be done on race day while Punch had an appointment that he couldn't break and wouldn't be at the track until late morning.
With Roy on mower duty, that left just Mark and me to get out all the banners and kickboards and lay them out on the centre green so that Mick Richards could pressure wash them clean. Rain was in the air and west Swindon had disappeared in clouds and rain but there was no appreciable precipitation at the top of Blunsdon Hill.
Another problem surfaced when Mick arrived with two pressure washers in tow. His main one was not heating the water properly so he had a slave one to take care of that. Not a problem in itself, but the two pressure washers could not reach the banners that we usually lay out on down by turns 1 and 2 so we had to lay the whole lot out at the top end of the circuit and then transport them down later.
Ron had put in a lot of work on the track since the rain and it looked good, with a nice top dressing and plenty of new material. But we still had to spend a lot of time just gazing at the clouds trying to anticipate the weather.
Our problem was exacerbated by the fact that the moisture in the air was not sufficient to keep the moisture in the track surface so we had to keep opening up the top layer with the harrows and then water it, to allow water to permeate through the top layer and down into the base. In the event of rain we decided to use every vehicle on site to tyre pack down the surface to get excess water to run off as quickly as possible. It was all rather unsettling.
The tyre tracks above show how packing down the loose material has an impact upon the track, even from a relatively lightweight vehicle. The darker material absorbs the moisture essential for the racing track while the lighter, packed material doesn't. This could lead to inconsistencies in the track surface that could cause grip problems later in the meeting itself.
With the banners cleaned and now drying slowly but still no chance of inflating the air fence I spent half and hour checking the air pumps that maintain the air fence. In addition to topping up the petrol in each I checked and filled up the oil reservoirs in each.
During the week we had our second delivery of shale this season. The 60 tons that we had in March have all but gone. The new delivery was made up of equal quantities of the red Edinburgh shale and the greyer clay shale. The former is fine for use in very wet conditions, with its relatively low clay composition. The latter is a binding shale that retains moisture well yet prevents dust on dry days.
Ron is holding a huge ball of grey clay that comes with the clay based shale. This will break up when it is put onto the track with the shale and then mixed in with a grader or the mesh. In this way we can actually tailor the clay component of the shale with much greater precision to match conditions. Trouble is, at the moment the weather is so unpredictable that we don't know what to do from minute to minute.
Jemima's new water tank has held up well and there have been no leaks there over the last week. The same cannot be said for the behemoth of a pressure washer that we have fitted behind her. This is a diesel washer with a hand pull starting mechanism. No glow plugs here - just a squirt of "Ready Start" up the air intake and then pull the starter mechanism as hard as you can while engaging compression.
We fill the tank with diesel and then ... watch it gush out of a broken hose all over the back of Jemima. The hose is repaired but still there is a leak from the bottom of the tank. The fact that diesel has leaked out means that we will have to bleed diesel through the whole system before we can start it properly. Punch decides to try a start. I hold the compression switch down, spray in the ready start and he pulls. Nothing. We try again and the beast coughs into life briefly, but not before it has nearly ripped Punch's arm from its socket.
We realise we can spend no more time on it today so there will be no pressure washing done.
It's mid day and the air fences are still down. By this stage they should be up, pinned and secured with the kickboards ready to be put in place.
Dave Whiting rings me up to ask if the meeting is on. He's heard from someone (Neil Luce) who's driven past and seen no visible activity and wants to know if the meeting is still on. We assure him that there are no plans to cancel or postpone it but that we are dreadfully behind schedule.
Mark and I set about removing all the water from the air bags. Using the very heavy and inflexible hose, we suck the water off using the water tanker and its pump mechanism. It is back breaking work and we manage only three or four panels before having to take a rest. In all we pump off half a tanker full of water from the bags and it takes us a numbing three hours.
We collapse into our seats for our weekly "Emu and chips" lunch. Holidays, meetings and all manner of other situations mean that we will not be able to enjoy additional help until mid afternoon and our day is just about made complete when Punch receives a call to say that Colin Meredith, the official Speedway Control Board Track Inspector has arrived to make an inspection. We know Colin well through the work we do at Cardiff for the GP but, nice bloke as he is, an inspection is all we need now.
As it is, he finds no real problems and the few minor suggestions that he makes can be completed next Thursday when we have another blank day.
But it's now almost 4pm and we still haven't got the air fence up. We have managed to fill half the tanker, that's a couple of thousand gallons of water from the panels that would have saturated the track and now the underground water tank is nearly full. There is an irony that is not lost on us when we see Punch watering the track while Mark and I try to get rid of the air bag water.
Adam Laws arrives followed shortly by Ernie Poole. Seldom have I been more pleased to see any of our helpers. While Mark inflates the panels I distribute the rubber kickboards around the track and then Adam helps me to put out the banners in the right places.
We eventually manage to get everything in place by 7pm before collapsing into chairs inside Number 96.
The track rides well and the Robins produce one of their best performances of the season in defeating a very strong Peterborough septet boasting a number of "Blunsdon specialists" as guests for absent riders.
If putting it all up was a nightmare, taking it down, with reduced numbers through illness and holidays, was a dream and Punch, Mark and I can hardly believe it when we see that it's just after 10pm and all is tidied away.
Punch and I end the evening by putting the track to bed, he driving the tractor with the harrows on the back, my tractor with the blade and the mesh. By the time that we've done 30 minutes work the track looks good enough to stage another meeting.
It's another blank week next week but we've got some of Colin Meredith's suggestions to look at and a number of other matters to deal with.
The new "Holta Racing Team GB" T shirts are on order, complete with the most adventurous logo that I've ever worked on , and should be ready for when we meet up with the man at Cardiff in a few weeks time.
