One of the most pleasing aspects of the Blog's success (over 100,000 visitors in a year) is that the backroom staff at Blunsdon are now recognised and their work more widely appreciated. Of all the staff at the Abbey, Punch has been the most popular amongst the readers, and it's hardly surprising. Today, Sunday, is his birthday. We celebrated last year with a cake, and my daughter Steffie used her GCSE Home Economics skills to conjure up a delicious cake for the old boy again this year. How old is he? Well, last year we were sure he was either 67 or 69. He claims that even his wife doesn't know his actual age. Whatever! He's a real inspiration to us all and a nicer chap you couldn't wish to meet. He still works like a man half his age and the wisdom of experience that he has accumulated over his many working years has got me out of more scrapes than I care to mention.

It's been an odd 7 days - for the first time since I've been working at the Abbey I missed a Thursday working day through illness. A comedy of errors saw me incapable of even walking let alone working, so the lads had to cope without me.

But there was no way I was missing Saturday morning, it being the nearest working day to Punch's birthday and a sudden realisation that the season is fast approaching and that Press and Practice is even closer.

We were out in number on a damp and rather dismal Saturday at the track. While Steffie worked in the pits, painting new kick boards, alongside the DaVinci's, Mark Price and Keith Johnson, John Nobbs, Roy Hicks, Ernie Poole and I ventured out onto the track to replace the errant and damaged air panel on turn 1. Gerald had a new toy on the shale, a sit on roller, and was content to chunter round looking superior as we manhandled a new air bag into place. Originally, all had looked well when he put up the air fence on turn 1 but a subsequent inflation showed that we had problems with one panel. As soon as we removed the errant bag we saw why the fence had refused to inflate properly - almost all the seams on one end were open.

With the new panel in place and the bags checked again, we made out way back to the pits and then pressure washed the damaged panel and two others that were to be taken back to AirTek for repair.

But while the track was looking good and the fences were solid, the pits area had been transformed. Not only had the walls received a second coating of white masonry paint, the concrete floor had been painted with a special gray paint, the sort usually reserved for garage floors.

Certainly this new floor covering will keep down the dust and hopefully make the pits easier to clean, but there is another reason for making sure that the pits look good. So much of speedway racing is in the head of the rider and we believe that a smart and tidy first impression allied to a pleasant working environment could, and should, help the riders. I can't remember the home pits looking this good in my time at Swindon. The away pits, which I admit are less than luxurious (I think Colin Meredith described them as "barely adequate" in a report last year), will receive their makeover soon.

While the painters carried on painting and others set to clearing out the old tea room (which will become our Sports Therapist, Karen's, base - I will not refer to it as our Massage Parlor for fear of compromising comments from some of the more outspoken Blog readers), Punch, Big Al and I decided to empty the trailer that had been left, fully laden with sand and shale by our friends on the greyhound side. Our first problem was how to lift the trailer, which although very old and battered is still useful, from its jacking position. In fact, so heavy was the load that the tractor simply couldn't move it off its moorings.

Cue a spark of inspiration from Punch; lift the trailer off the jacking post with the JCB's bucket. So with Punch at the wheel of his beloved JCB and me revving the whatsits off our Leyland tractor, we eventually managed to move the trailer. We decided to dump the contents in the corner of the "graveyard" - the fenced off area behind the pits. Manoeuvring the trailer expertly (ahem!), I managed to get it out of the pits gate and into the graveyard and backed up just where Punch wanted the sand dumped. Using the tractor and trailer's hydraulics I lifted the trailer to its highest point and waited for the sand to slide off. But it didn't. Even when I jogged the tractor back and forth the sand still wouldn't budge.

Cue another spark of Punch inspiration. Use the back bucket of the JCB to pull the sand and waste material down and off the trailer. All was going well : we had the machines in the right place, the trailer was upright, the bucket in place and then there was a terrible tearing sound. The sand was moving - success - but so was the metal floor of the trailer - whoops!

And so that is how Punch and I managed to remove both sand and the floor of the trailer in one fell swoop.

But we can fix it and overall the morning was a great success despite the fine mist. And the cake was superb and much appreciated by all and sundry. As Steffie and I left the orders for chocolate cakes and Victoria sponges were coming in thick and fast.

And good news from our partner track team at Edinburgh. The Edinburgh lads have great readers of the blog and one, Ian Hawkins, recently won the Blog's latest quiz. We are hoping that we can feature the work of the Edinburgh track staff as they prepare for the season.

In an email this week Ian wrote : We have now made a start on the track but it is very soggy after some serious rain followed by hard frosts so we cannot really do anything to it until it dries. We have put the fence boards out on the track, reattached the clips and successful rebuilt the fence (no airtek barrier for us) I will let you have some photos when I remember to take my camera!

We look forward to more reports from Edinburgh in the next few crucial weeks.