We reconvened on Wednesday after the Berwick meeting for some fence repairs, including straightening a fence post using the special tool developed for this intricate task - a tractor and a length of chain which was looped between the errant post and the spiker on the rear of the tractor and given a good pull. Then all that remained to do was reconnect the wires to the post, adding a few more kart tyres for extra springiness.
We also started another round of fence board painting to spruce the old dump up a bit as we had not been able to do this pre-season due to being up to our necks in snow. A long overdue clean-up and repainting of the changing rooms and showers was carried out by Alex Gibson on Thursday.
There is no end to the innovation at the moment, its latest momentous event being the official opening of a portaloo next to the pits to replace the previous open-air arrangement.
The meeting, against Workington was enlivened by some extremely hard racing by Craig Cook who looked very quick but unfortunately left Kevin Wolbert no room at all on the fourth turn after a rather forceful right turn resulted in Kevin hitting the fence very hard, fortunately he was uninjured, unlike Andre Compton who would miss a few meetings after a first bend fall, and Adam Roynon who fell rather spectacularly all on his own also on bend 4, which allegedly led to some rather strange happenings at the return on Saturday when Adam was allegedly "mentally unfit " to race. We had a visit from 1960's Middlesbrough and Halifax rider Dave Younghusband, always nice to meet a top man from my favourite racing era, the Provincial and British Leagues of the 1960's
Wednesday's activities were more fence repair work and board painting and also cutting a number of kart tyres to fit over a number of projecting electrical junction boxes on short wooden posts between the safety fence and the greyhound track.
However this was as nothing compared to the Friday when, after a dry morning it began to rain just after mid-day until almost 4 p.m. We were able to remove most of the water and relay some dry material on the surface to enable the meeting to go ahead against Glasgow, where the Tigers adapted much better to the conditions and won fairly easily. I had an interesting chat with Travis McGowan who has been stuck over here for three weeks as a result of the Icelandic eruption.
Ah well the premier league starts soon after a mercifully short and unsuccessful Premier Trophy campaign.
Ps Very good GP on saturday fast and competitive racing on a well prepared circuit
