"A pleasant April evening saw a large attendance converge on Blunsdon and those present witnessed an intriguing encounter that was scattered with good quality racing on a well prepared racing strip." From Chris Seaward's report of the match.

"Weather - Tropical: Track - Superb" from the excellent Speedway Updates.

Last week I reported that a number of people had commented about the nature of the racing and whether the track really suited the Swindon boys. As I said at the time, the track needs to be safe for racing before any other considerations are taken into account (and it was) and then prepared as close to the specification we are given by the riders and promotion (given the vagaries of the weather and other factors beyond out control).

This week the overriding feeling from the other side of the fence was that the track was superb and led to some great racing. Let me tell you that from our side of the fence the track was a nightmare and as for the racing, I had to ask at the end of heat 15 whether indeed that was the end of the meeting and if so, had we won.

Earlier in the week I had watched the first televised meet between Coventry and Eastbourne, and being the sad person that I am, I spent too much time studying the track and the air fence. The air fence at Coventry is the "Barry Briggs" fence. It is based upon pressurised bags with pressure maintained by a series of electric air pumps that kick in when the pressure drops. Made of a more flexible and pliable nature than our Air Tek one, the fence characteristically sits up very straight and is consistently well inflated. I noticed the relative paucity of advertising banners on the air fence, but more noticeable was the lack of dirt on the fence panels, even at the end of the meeting.

Our Air Tek fence is an air loss fence, that is it is constantly leaking, rather like the bouncy castles of old. Air is constantly pumped in high volume into the bags and then lost through the seams etc. This is all well and good providing that the air being pumped into the bags equals that leaking out - any extra holes, and someone managed to catch the air panel next to the infamous pits gate panel and rip open a large hole even before the meeting got underway, and the whole fence starts to sag badly.

One other factor that needs to be taken into account is the weight of the shale that sticks to a banner on an air fence or that sits atop the panel. Heavy shale will actually pull the panels forward and will increase the pressure in the bags and increase pressure on seams already under significant burden.

So let's return to the nightmare. We know that we have to keep the bags as free from cloying shale as possible and prevent significant build up of shale on the kickboards. We also know that the Swindon track creates plenty of dirt when the racing starts. The straights are so long that the bikes reach tremendous speeds before they blast sideways into the corners. The banking pushed them down and away from the safety fence so the bravest can accelerate even faster through the corners, using more power to counteract the effects of the banking. This is what causes dirt - the rear wheels are spinning faster than nearly anywhere else in the country. At Coventry there is precious little camber and the track is smaller than ours. You don't need so much dirt to catch you when you make your corners and most riders will stay relatively close to the inside line because the outside tends to be like the marbles found off line on a formula 1 track.

So as our brave boys hammer into the corners at Swindon, significant amounts of dirt flay at the fence. To stop this becoming a dust bowl and to give the extra grip needed for a bike to actually get around the bend we need the surface to be moist. And that means heavy, cloying, Somme like mud. It's great for the racing public but is dreadful if your task is to maintain it. At one stage last night the pit gate panel was so heavy with shale that I could barely lift it open to allow a mechanic through to make last minute adjustments to a bike.

We normally have about 8 spare clean banners on the centre green so that we can swap them in for those coated with shale. Usually we can pick out banners that need replacing. After heat one we could have replaced the entire run on turns 3 and 4, so coated were they.

Early in the morning we had the portents of things to come - a lot of very wet sludge at the top of the corners, most of which can from water draining naturally off the sand of the dog track. Without a drain between the two tracks this is inevitable. While Punch and I pulled the slime back from the kickboards Gerald circulated on the tractor pulling the material away using the small blade before trying to dry it with the chain harrow. The action of the harrow is to lift the top surface of the shale and allow air to get in.

At the end of last week's meeting we cleaned as much shale off the air panels and kickboards as we could with the pressure washer. The rationale behind this thinking was that if we could get the worst off then when Mick Richards arrived first thing on a Thursday to clean the panels properly he would be able to do it quicker and with less water. Already sodden, the shale in front of the panels is further saturated with cleaning water and simply never dries out .

The experiment seems to have worked because Mick cleans the fences almost faster than I can pin them up and Roy can get the green catch netting in place. More importantly there is less residual water on the track than usual.

While the four of us go about our work on track, Staring marshal Stan Potter starts on his work, which includes marking out the 4 metre exclusion zone around the inside of the track. Track staff, photographers and the many others who magically appear on the centre green when racing starts.

Stan's white line has disappeared, largely due to the necessary mowing of the centre green grass - he now replaces it. It's just another of those jobs that have to be done.

We dine later than normal - it's half past 2 before we have our first break, and that's a long stretch considering we've been hard at it since 8.30am. Punch cooks eggs and sausages while Gerald tries to convince me that eating eggs smothered in tabasco sauce is like heaven on earth. As a strictly non egg person I find this hard to accept and eschew all offers.

I've put a second air pump down on turns 1 and 2. The ministrations of Mr Suchecki last week (he made a point of inspecting the same piece of air fence three times in four races) means that there may be some hidden damage and I suspect we'll need the extra air pressure in case something gives big time. I also spend half and hour prising the hooks out of the back of the air bags. These attach the bottom of the air bag to the bottom of the safety fence behind it and prevent the bags from moving around too much. In theory these hooks are fine but in practice they are a horror story. Sitting down low, usually covered with sodden shale and sand, they soon rust and are the devil's own to unfasten, especially in a rush when a bag needs replacing mid meeting. My idea is to replace these with strong cable ties (ah, what would I do without the humble cable tie), strong enough to keep the fence in place but desperately easy to cut with a large set of wire cutters in the event of a disaster. My main problem is that most are so tight that they can only be removed when the fence is fully deflated, and there is no time for that now.

Adam, above, joins us together with Mark Price, one of our 2008 recruits to the track staff and a really good bloke. There needs to be humour on days like these - we work very hard and often with the most basic of equipment, it's cold and wet and you get filthy dirty, so 5 minutes of plain silliness mid way through the afternoon is sufficient to give us the energy to carry on with essential repairs.

Today, Adam finds a new use for a spare air pump. Turn it in and push the hose pipe up your jumper - bingo, Pop Eye! It's when you pull back and see the whole thing tat you start to seriously consider his mental stability!

Before I get started on the repairs to Mr Suchecki's kick boards, Roy and I take a look at a panel on turn 4 that is giving us concern - it's sagging and the pressure just doesn't feel right, With Mark to help us we remove said panel and put a new one in. Instantly the fence looks better and the pressure rises.

Back behind the pits we inflate the old panel and discover, as we suspected, that a section of the stitching right at the bottom of the panel, has given way and there is a gaping hole - another one destined for repair.

The first riders start to appear at the pit gate so we know that time is moving on. Down on turn 2 there are three entire air bags without any attached kickboards thanks to the regular visits of our Mr S. Mark price and I set about repair these while Punch and Gerald continue to apply a light sprinkling of water to keep the rapidly drying surface damp.

Gerald rips the gates but there is now real ripping of the exits of turns 2 and 4, as we did last year; there's more than enough dirt to give the riders the inducement to cut back and blast out along the white lines.

By the time that the kickboards are ready it is time for Punch and me to clean the white line with the pressure spray. I drive the new Kubota tractor, Punch blasts the grime away.

Back in the pits I meet Christina Turnbull, our referee for the night. We were first introduced last year by Jeff Scott when Christina made her Blunsdon debut. Even though she hails from Surrey, the Scottish brogue is still very apparent in all that she says. She's keen to know how the track has been behaving this year and what work we've been up to. I point out that she needs to be a regular reader of the Blog and that she was featured in "The Year of the Blog" (available to all comers via this web site at just £9.99 including P & P). Last week our referee, and yes, I'll name him, Mr Robinson, pointed out that there was a tear in one of the two Daily Express banners that we must display. He mentioned that if we could tape it up it wouldn't have to appear in his report. So we taped it up and ... he reported it. I wasn't very impressed by this. I make mention of it and Christina assures me that any problems she finds she'll report to me and if we get them fixed ... no problem. AS it is, she doesn't find any major problems and we're all happy.

As we (my two children, Steffie and Dave, and I) join her for part of her track walk she talks animatedly about her love of the sport and her responsibilities. She certainly makes an impact upon my two ... "What a nice lady." Indeed, everyone who meets her is similarly impressed. We wish her good luck.

In fact, Christina stamps her authority right from the start of race 1 when she calls back all 4 because the rider in red (Mr Adams) was moving. Suitably chastened, he doesn't move before the tapes on the re-run. Christina keeps the meeting moving at pace whilst being aware of the ned for regular grading of a track that was making mountains of dirt and some very rapid times. Even Stan Potter, our starting guru, was impressed, and that takes some doing. Well done, Christina, you're assured of a warm welcome when you return to Blunsdon later in the season.

And the meeting itself ... No one makes an unscheduled visit to the air fence, so that's a plus point. However, whilst the racing was good and everyone seems to have been delighted with the whole meeting, the track staff had to work feverishly to keep the shale off the fence. After two laps of the first heat nearly all of the banners on 3 and 4 had been covered by a thick layer of goo like shale. Some clown had punctured a hole in the safety fence adjacent to the pits gate, so that had to be cable tied as a makeshift repair before we even started.

As the meeting progressed the starting gate got progressively heavier and heavier with shale, despite our frantic attempts to clean it. During the interval I cleared the kickboards on turn 4; they had all but disappeared under the weight of the shale. Sweating profusely and thinking that in a past life I must have been truly evil to have been punished like this, I took my short break during heat 13, and missed the race of the night completely.

At the end of heat 15 I was so tired that I had to check with Clerk of the Course, Mick Hunt, to find out if the match had finished and if he could tell me which team had won. I looked around at the other track staff on 3 and 4 and we were all knackered; I'm sure Keith Johnson and his team on 1 and 2 were in a similar state.

After a couple of riders completed some after meeting practice laps, we started all over again. Our newest task was to remove all the banners and fold them up, leaving them by the white line. We use over 40 banners in an evening and all were coated with a thick brown slime, trebling their weight.

Punch and Adam set about cleaning down the air panels while Gerald circulated with the small blade bringing back as much shale from the fence as possible. Other members of the track staff took down the green netting, unclipped the air fence and put away the large wooden boards that we have to put down on the dog track where the tractors move back and forth during a meeting. Certainly our new work regime after the meeting is paying dividends but we are all washed out at this stage.

With Punch still jet washing the boards I return to the pits to collect our newest toy, Robin. In the last couple of years we have been without a vehicle to transport equipment around the stadium. My trusty Peugeot has been used on a regular basis but now it can be parked in the staff car park and left safely for the day. We now have an old Land Rover truck which we have called Robin. In gray and white it's hardly an attractive vehicle, and the gear change mechanism has recently redefined my understanding of the word "random", but it can cart the heavy air bags, kick boards, air pumps and all the other paraphernalia that we need.

Gerald has plans to have it painted Red and White - he's obviously working too hard!!

I use Robin to drive round picking up all of the filthy advertising banners and then go and collect the pumps, once Punch has finished washing the panels.

By the end of the night we are all tired but at least Punch and I only have relatively short journeys to make, he to the middle of Swindon, me to the peace and calm of rural Malmesbury. Gerald, on the other hand, now has to settle down to a 2 and a bit hour drive to Lakeside so he can be ready to start work on their track tomorrow.

We are making progress but, as with the introduction of all new regimes, there is a period of bedding down and there is no doubt that, while the after match cleaning will pay dividends on the subsequent race day, we still have to find a way of using our physical resources more effectively at the end of a long and exhausting day.

A special note for Ernie : No comments this week about, "Is that a tea, Ern?" or "What's a Grecian, Ern?"