The annual Blunsdon Bloggers expedition took place during the weekend of the Tourn Grand Prix in Poland between the 17th and 20th June 2010.
Ace blogger, Phil Rice, has already put together a written account of the sojourn (available exclusively through this link) but here is his photographic diary.
After stopping off at Ipswich on the Friday night to catch the Robins' brilliant victory at Foxhall Heath, the Bloggers set forth for Poland and Bydgoszcz.
The hotel in Bydgoszcz was basic but satisfactory and, upon arrival, the intrepid bunch made their way down to the local stadium, where Tomasz Gollob first cut his teeth.
Like most continental pit complexes, the pits at Bydgoszcz are large, with areas set aside for each rider and a small workshop / shed beyond for the riders to store their equipment and work on their bikes during the week. It's worth noting here that the stadium is available throughout the week for the riders to work on their bikes and also get in track time.
The Bloggers met up with 17 year old Szymon Wozniak, a Bydgoszcz junior rider who has just broken through into the main team at reserve.
Szymon's excellent English encouraged our intrepid group to interview him. In return, the youngster allowed the lads to look around the workshop and admire how well such a young man is set up.
In addition to a number of engines and frames, the workshop is equipped with just about everything that young Szymon could possibly want. His sponsorship board shows that there is plenty of encouragement and support for an enterprising and ambitious young Polish rider. Phil and the lads reckon that young Szymon is definitely one to look out for in the future.
The Blog will keep an eye on his scores in Poland and post them from time to time.
Sunday and on to Torun. The stadium is every bit as spectacular as it was shown on television.
In their hire car, the lads turn up to pick up their tickets from the ticket office. These had all been booked well in advance!
David Lewis and Phil wait anxiously for their tickets. A few years back the Bloggers had visited Leszno for a Grand Prix and found that their seat tickets meant nothing at all when the local fans decided that they wanted them and our heroes were left to watch the action from the very back of the stands.
Relief all round then that the tickets were actually there waiting for them.
The great Per Jonsson was largely instrumental in the design and concept of the new stadium and his World Championship winning bike was on show at the Fan Shop. Never ones to miss an opportunity like this, Phil and Dave pose with the famous bike.
Even though it's called the Marion Rose Motorarena, the avenue that leads up to mit has been christened the Per Jonsson Avenue - nice touch
The stadium has beautifully designed facilities outside. The car parks are close by and spacious and there is a well presented picnic area in the grounds where the fans can rest, eat, drink and socialise both before and after meetings.
Surrounded by fans decked out in red and white, our brave lads took in the atmosphere and survived the crush when the start line girls and four riders came out for the routine autograph session.
Because the Grand Prix makes special demands upon pit areas, the Torun ones were extended for the event, situated within nthe confines of the stadium but actually out of the arena.
Inside the views are truly spectacular for any sort of stadium let alone a purpose built speedway stadium although Phil did comment that the centre green at Torun was not as smart as the centre green at Blunsdon (although the latter looks desert like with the absence of any rain recently.)
The black shale was very much in evidence, as was the quantity of water put onto the track prior to the start of the meeting.
Surrounding the 325 metre track is seting for 15,000 people, although several thousand more were let in to stand in spare areas (can't see that happening anywhere in Britain with our Health and Safety legislation). Track record is, interestingly, held by Ryan Sullivan in a time of 57.26, set in 2009.
Well, being the blog, we have to look at the tractors - precision formation tractor work throughout kept the track in excellent racing condition and enabled our man Rune to blast his way through to the final and second place on the rostron - go Rune!!!
Pre meeting entertainment over, it was time for action. Last minute interviews with Jason Crump and the unveiling of a large red and white banner with the legend "Galway" had all the boys scratching their collective heads - is there an Irish Polish speedway fan club from the heart of the Emerald Isle?
Barry Briggs was on hand, completing another section of his sponsored ride to raise funds for disabled ex riders.
The meeting has been covered elsewhere but we must mention those dramatic blasts around the boards from Rune Holta and that amazing heat with Gollob, Hampel and Holta where rider positions were swapped each and every bend.
Only criticism, still unresoloved despite email promises from IMG, the GP promoters, was the absence of programmes for the event. Phil has still not received the programme promised by IMG - come on lads, pull your finger out!
From their base in Bydgoszcz the boys headed for the small town of Pila on Sunday, about 90 minutes away.
Pila were taking on Ostrow in a Division Two meeting. The Bloggers had decided to got to Pila because Simon Stead was due to be riding for the home side. Sadly, Simon did not make the trip, although he did let the lads know at the Ipswich Swindon meeting on the Thursday. Simon's non appearance may have had something to do with a lack of payment for previous appearances.
But with the plans already laid, the lads set off and found the stadium in the middle of quiet a small town.
Another more than reasonable set of pits.
The racing here was good with a number of veterans, a few young lads and a two Russians. A couple of nasty looking crashes held up the meeting and we had to leave after heat 11 to get back to Bydgoszcz for the 7 pm match against Jason Crump’s Wroclaw.
Pila could have done with Simon's help on the day as they crashed to a 35 - 54 home defeat at the hands of Ostrow.
Facilities at Pila are a bit basic but there is seating all round the stadium. However the racing was good but here another small crowd of about 700 which for quite a small town is probably not bad. The Speedway Star suggested there was 3,000 there – must be a mistake in translation.
Certainly the main bos, which housed the referee's box, was a dramatic piece of architecture.
Well, we had to look at the track surface - it wouldn't be the Blunsdon Blog if we didn't! Black and fine, once again it had been heavily watered and was rather sticky, but quite unlike anything we have in the UK.
One notable feature of the track was the very impressive air fence. Note how tall it stands and how much of the corners it protects. Prehaps, given the rather crash, bang, wallop nature of the racing, they need such a robust air fence.
Throughout the event the Pila fans were noisy and enthusiatic in the support for their understrength side. Decked out all in organe, they made quite an impact upon our now travel weary Bloggers.
But travelling with nthe Bloggers is not about touring around country lanes - it is about getting as many meetings in as possible. They had already missed a meetign at Grudziaz. On the Friday evening they had found that Grudziadz were at home. It was only about 50 miles from Bydgoszcz. Enquiries via Simon Stead told us that the meeting started at 5 pm – but it was too early for them as their flight to Bydgoszcz. was only due in at 4.30.
With a meeting between Bydgoszcz and Jason Crump's Wroclaw starting at 7pm the lads had to leave Pila after heat 11 and belt back down to Bydgoszcz to see their last speedway meeting of the tour.
They arrived at Bydgoszcz about 30 minutes before the meeting started. Some of the party had been there a few seasons ago for a GP and the experience had not been good. Bullied out of the seats they had wanted to occupy, the Bloggers had watched the speedway hanging off metal posts to get a decent view.
But on this evening a smallish crowd of 5,000 (well by Polish standards!) meant there was plenty of room to watch the away side make it three away wins out of three on the Bloggers Tour. None of the Bloggers had ever seen an Extraleague fixture before and the impressions were that it’s very intense; the racing was close but not too much passing in this fixture on a slick track. Our Symon Wozniak looked good with eight points from six rides including a heat win. One for the future.
Bydgoszcz went down by 39 to Wroclaw's 51. Robert Kosiecha top scored for the home team with 14 and a bonus but recieved scant support from his team mates other than Antonio Lindback's 8+1, Wozniak's 8 and Andreas Jonsson's 6+2. For Wroclaw, Kenneth Bjerre top scored with 15 while Jason Crump ended with 10+1 and Piotr Swiderski 9+2.
And so ended the first Blunsdon Bloggers tour of 2010. They're off to Gorican later for the Croatian round. But now all our attention is on Cardiff.
