One of the great delights of the Blunsdon Blog is the link that we have forged with our good friend Ian Hawkins and the track staff at Edinburgh and I am delighted that Ian has again agreed to provide us with text and photographs from North of the border for the 2010 season. This not only allows us to see the problems faced, and overcome, by another set of volunteer track staff, but also to get a glimpse of what life is like operating a track in a different league to the one we experience at Blunsdon.
The other pleasure derived from our links with Edinburgh last season was our sharing of Ryan Fisher. It's sad that he's not with us again this year and we'll miss his presence in the pits at the Abbey but at least he wont have to suffer those 6 hour drives all the way down to the south west each week!
This year we've plundered Edinburgh again, bringing young Thomas Helm Jonasson down to ride in the reserve spot for the Robins.
Anyway, enough of me, it's time for Ian to sum up the end of last season and to prepare us for what could quite conceivably be the last season of speedway at the present Armadale track.
Hi Graham,
Your new rider is Thomas H (for Helm) Jonasson and his graven image is above left. A very professional rider but probably not ideally suited to the typically smaller tracks over here. So no problem with Blunsdon then! On the right is Flyin' Ryan or "Smoking Fish" warming up his bikes in the pits.
How is your new track progressing? We are supposed to have an area of land earmarked but no-one is saying where it is. It still largely depends on Sainsburys getting planning consent from the heart of darkness aka West Lothian Council.who are very definite at being non-commital.
Just a quick run down of a rather wet end to our season. Following on from our PL Play-off semi-final win we met KL in the final on Friday 16th October on a dryish track.There was a slight diversion, in that Kalle Katajisto, our asset from 2008 had been re-signed and had arranged a mid-afternoon practice session. Kalle was accompanied by Joonas Kylmakorpi who had brought 5 machines plus several motors with him for Kalle to try. The session went well apart from a propensity for Kalle to overcook it on the third bend where the track kind of flattens out a bit, creating a slight berm, but after some advice from Joonas he settled rather better.
As for the meeting, it seemed that the Stars were not all that interested in this event going by the non-appearance of Darcy Ward due to a "back injury" sustained in Poland which did not seem to unduly hinder him when giving Crumpy his bumps the following Saturday. That is twice now we have won the Playoff trophy - if we win it a third time do we get to keep it!
The following weekend we raced King's Lynn again in the KO Cup Final on Friday 23rd. In mid-morning we had a visit and photocall for our new track staff sponsor, Fasco Extra and were presented with rather smart new overalls and caps. Matthew Wethers also called in for the photo shoot with Fasco's Sales Director and track photographer Ron McNeil. Fasco are an industrial clothing and tool supplier based in Grangemouth.
This meeting was enlivened by a superb recovery by Darcy Ward when he lifted almost vertically on the back straight but managed to get back under control without losing his lead. From my vantage point on the centre green at the entry to the third bend it was extremely scary!
On Saturday we were due to race Belle Vue in the Play-off but after a major effort in removing many tons of slop from the track and cleaning the greyhound track covers we were beaten by steady rain from late afternoon. Ditto for Sunday.
We all reconvened on Friday 30th and got the meeting on on a very wet and heavy circuit.
Surprisingly Krzysztof Kasprszak after a superb display of white line racing came within 0.2 sec of the track record.
His team mates backed him up well against a Monarchs seven without Kevin Wolbert and with Ryan and Andrew Tully under the weather.
The result was a gubbing, 21-68 our worst home defeat ever, certainly since re-opening in 1960 at Old Meadowbank. Our fireworks display after, while spectacular was rather overshadowed by what had preceded it.
After a brief adjournment for the Annual Dinner Dance on Saturday 31st we were back on Wednesday and Saturday to put away the fence panels, padding, car park lighting etc and clean and store away the dog track covers. There was more JCB-related action scraping off the remaining sludge and dumping it beside the pits to dry out for future use.
All in all one of our more successful seasons but with the Supermarket planning process dragging on and on it appears that 2010 will definitely be our last season at the Scotwaste Arena whatever transpires. There is talk of land being earmarked for a new stadium so it isn't all bad news for the future but at the moment it is all hanging in the balance.
The winter weather has been very harsh with feet of snow, hard frosts etc so we await with interest seeing the state the track is in.
Hey Ho.
All the best to all the Blog's readers from up here in Edinburgh.
Ian and the rest of the Armadale track staff.
Thanks again to Ian for this.
In the next edition of Edinblog we'll be covering a very successful pre season practice session for the 2010 Monarchs.
The next edition of the Blunsdon Blog will contain photographs and copy from the Press and practice Day and the Behind Closed Doors session at Blunsdon with a first look at our new Polish rider Grzegorz Zengota and his introduction to the small training track at Blunsdon.
And then it all starts up again with the Bob Kilby Memorial Trophy and a line up speedway stars to die for ... except for one notable absentee!
