Saturday morning and just a month to go. The normal Saturday team are joined by Alan and Dave, the "DaVinci Boys", who arm themselves with rollers and a seemingly endless supply of white paint and set about re-painting the pits, along with Ernie.
It's a good job that we cleaned out the pits on Thursday and rid
ourselves of the flaking paintwork from last year. It's amazing what a lick of clean paintwork can do for the place.
Keith and Adam volunteer to paint the kickboards around the track while Gerald, Punch and I turn our attention to the track. The fact that we've had a reasonably settled spell of weather means that we
can safely get the leviathan, our motorway blade out onto the track to begin to make the final contour cuts prior to the start of the season.
My first task is to brush away the standing water on turn 3 and also in the dip on the main straight. Punch and I fill these dips with new brown shale while Gerald
begins to cut the back straight.
Give the enormous size of the machine, the blade itself is surprisingly small and has to be set very carefully to prevent it from digging in to the hard sub surface and snapping. Using a plethora of controls, Gerald settles the blade onto the track at the desired angle
and begins the first cut on the inside of the back straight. Over the course of last season there has been a build up of material on the inside of the track and we want to move this material away from the white line and evenly contour it up the fence. This will mean that water can run off the track more efficiently and should certainly improve the racing lines.
The weight of the machine soon starts to force moisture up from the lower levels of the track. We monitor the situation carefully. If too much moisture comes up the track will become boggy and we will end up doing more harm than good.
The vast wheelbase of the blade means that most undulations are
removed in one pass.
While Punch loads up the JCB with new red shale, our favourite material for track work - it binds so well - I follow the blade making mental notes where the track is low and needs building up.
Punch and I set to spreading the new shale around turns 1 and 2
and then in the dip on the inside of turn 3, where the puddles form. Punch is a class act - even though he's at an age where most of us would be contemplating retirement and a life in slippers, he is amazingly fit and strong. I try to keep up with his work rate but after 20 or so minutes my arm muscles are screaming at me to stop.
With the new shale in place and lightly tamped down, Gerald is able to pass by, screening off the very top layer and them compressing the surface with the enormous rear tyre of the blade.
We soon discover another area that needs attention just after the start line. A complete bucket of new shale is laid down and packed
here.
Meanwhile Adam and Keith are still at it, painting the kickboards. It's not a job for anyone with bad back! Their cubist art work is soon apparent, the sharply delineated blocks of red and white contracting with the murky brown of the track, makes a strong visual
statement! When Keith catches me taking another photograph he makes another visual statement and then a verbal one, to wit that if I didn't put the camera away he would position it where the sun wouldn't shine.
I take the hint and leave them to their labour of love.
Every pass of the blade brings another serious contemplation of the track surface. Gerald climbs down from the cab and he and Punch go down on their haunches and study the contours of the track. When they have come to an agreement Gerald climbs back up to the cab and begins a new pass. He is determined that this year's
track is the best that it has ever been. After two hours of shaving and blading the surface I can appreciate how good it is going to be.
We know that we can't do much about the slight rise in the level of the track just before the start and finish line - the enormous concrete
slab, put down across the track in the 1960's for the benefit of the cars that once raced here - is covered by a perilously thin layer of heavily compressed shale anyway. If we were to level the straight completely we'd be down to the concrete.
The newly contoured main straight
looks so much wider than before while the work we've done on the entrance to turn 1 opens up all sorts of new racing lines.
Having contoured the main straight down to the white line on the inside we should be able to avoid puddling and the associated boggy patches on the track.
On our return to the pits we find Ernie, Dave and Alan hard at the painting. The old place looks ready. The kickboards are complete and the track is looking stunning.
The air fence is apparently due back on Monday.
On Thursday we'll be joined by my 12 year old son, David. While the three of us set to laying out the air bags, Dave can get on and apply the red paint around the pits.
