Multitudinous apologies - I know it's late but I seem to have been doing so much writing recently for programmes and the excellent SpeedwayPlus web site (www.speedwayplus.co.uk) that I've had to put in extra hours at the Malmesbury Pottery, where I work most days, and on my IT business.

This blog concentrates on Thursday 8th May and the build up to the match against Coventry in the Elite League. It is also a chance to look at the new developments around the stadium that give the old place a new entry and hint at bigger things to come. And then there's Roy's suggestion of a giant erection on turn 1 (his wife was interested in that one ... but more of that later.)

It's summer time in Blunsdon and the Costa del Swindon was bathed in glorious sunshine and brilliant blue skies for pretty much the first time this year. Reconciling myself to the fact that I would have to cover up against the sun (I'm the sort of person who can get a 5 minute sun tan and a 6 minute sunburn) I ventured out onto a backed Blunsdon raceway.

Of course, after all of the recent damp race days, a day where we can predict the weather with as much certainty as possible is always a relief ... but there's always a fly in the ointment. And the fly in Blunsdon terms is the perilous nature of our water supply.

Gerald didn't look too positive as I approached. "The water supply is critical ... someone has used up quite a bit of our water." Readers of the blog over some time will know who that someone, or someones will be ... enough said. If you look carefully at the picture above right you will see some lines stretching out across the track from the air fence. Those lines appeared when Punch inflated the fence. It's water from the dog track and it flooded across the track and then ran off down the white line. Had it washed across the track evenly it might have been half useful, but it didn't. It's 9am and bakingly hot and we have a track surface that is either soppingly wet or as hard as concrete. This is difficult. Whatever we do to the track we will always have inconsistency in the surface from these runs offs.

While Gerald and Punch douse the track with water using the low bar (this floods the track as evenly as possible and in some way mitigates against the drying sun and breeze).

Out on the centre green Karl (a new addition to the day team), Roy and I spread out the 60 or so advertising banners so that Mick Richards can pressure wash them clean after he's cleaned the main air fences. At last we've got sufficient new banners to cover the entire air fence at the start of a meeting, with enough old ones to replace them as and when the dirt starts to fly.

As they continue with the banners I watch the flooding of the track. The surface is hard and the water tends to stay on it for some while before disappearing down. We haven't ripped it up because that would have opened the surface up too much and would have allowed even more water to be evaporated away. The challenge is to get sufficient water into the base to allow it to bind properly while eking out our dwindling supplies of water.

I spend the next hour pinning up the air fence panels and adjusting the cable ties that I put in at the bottom of each panel. Previously, the panels were kept in place at the bottom of the safety fence by metal clips. The problem with the clips was that they frequently rusted solid and also were devilishly difficult to remove in the event of a puncture to a panel. My idea is to use cable ties that can be adjusted so that we can ensure that the panels always sight square at the bottom and can be easily clipped if we need to move a bag. Thus far, we've only had to remove one air bag, and that was punctured by an errant tractor ... but we can't be complacent ... sooner or later someone's going to go through the fence so we must be prepared.

After a lunch in the newly carpeted Number 96 ("Shoes and boots off before you come in here," proclaims the house proud Punch) I set to repairing kickboards around the track. Build up of heavy shale, close encounters with back wheels and some overly enthusiastic raking often break the ties that bind the air panels to the heavy rubber kickboards that we use to ensure that riders and bikes cannot slide underneath the air fence.

It's a dirty and uncomfortable job. The dampness from the greyhound track alluded to earlier means that there are some distinctly boggy areas just where I need to kneel in order to repair a kick board. Once I'm down I often have to drill new holes for the cable ties and then shred the backs of my hands trying to get the holes in the kickboards and air fences to match up.

In all I replace 60 cable ties - it takes me two hours. And it's hot. In fact, when Gerald and Punch drench me with water as I work it almost comes as a relief.

Back in the pits the riders are arriving. At the sharp end of the sport there are new developments on a weekly basis. This week a number of riders are now using personalised environmental mats. The "environmental mat" has been a compulsory part of the rider's equipment for the last couple of years. I suppose it's there to soak up errant oil and the like but I can't be sure. Initially most used a roll of rubber, then we had bit of rubber backed carpet. Now we have mats in team colours with adverts etc. Bomber Harris and Leigh Adams both sport the new mats.

As I make my way down the back straight I come across the affable Steve Gobey, purveyor of music and entertainment to Swindon, Lakeside and others. Steve keeps me supplied with cable ties - cheers mate. He's another of the brigade of back stage staff who just get on with the job of making evenings at a track that much more entertaining. That he's so cheerful is a testimony to his character considering that his van's front end has been significantly modified by an altercation with the back end of a 4X4. "I was on the M25 on the way to Lakeside and the traffic was stop start and I just didn't break in time."

Above right is a picture taken from the banking of turn 2 looking out at the entrance to the Abbey Stadium. Long gone are the trees that used to measure the length of the back straight along Lady Lane. The warehouses just before the entrance are also now just a part of history. In fact, for the first time, the traffic lights by the garage at the top of Blunsdon Hill have also gone.

Traffic wishing to turn off the A419 Cirencester - Swindon road now has to drive further on to a set of traffic lights alongside the Cold Harbour Hotel and then swing across a bridge and then along an elevated stretch of road that overlooks the main car park.

It is as we contemplate the new traffic arrangements that Roy makes a timely comment. "See those new traffic lights. I bet that, come sun down, the red light will be clearly visible in the stadium. I wonder who will be the first rider to come to a halt claiming to have seen a red warning light only to be caught out by these traffic lights." He's got a point. But the serious nature of the point is shattered by his next comment. "We'll need some sort of large erection on the first turn to blot out those lights." The very thoughts of this send us into schoolboy fits of laughter. Quite what Roy's wife will make of his "huge erection" on turn 1 is anyone's business!

As I pass the start gate Gerald and Punch continue to circulate, applying the last precious drops of water. The situation was made worse when we found out that all supplies of water to the stadium had been cut off during the afternoon, again as a consequence of the new road developments. Could it get any better?

Inside the pits the mechanics prepare bikes while Leigh Adams talks with the Sw8indon riders and exchanges banter with the Coventry lads.

In an article to be published in the programme for the forthcoming Poole match I make much of the often over-hyped term "team spirit" when applied to speedway teams. But there's not doubt, the atmosphere in the pits is so much better than last year. I try to capture Seb Alden preparing himself for the meeting but he catches a glance and immediately smiles and gives me a thumbs up. Of all the riders, his transformation has been the most startling. During his last term at Swindon he often cut a disconsolate and solitary figure - now he's just so relaxed and happy with life.

Mads has always been an affable and larger than life member of the team. Big Al, right in the picture above, has made a clock for number 96 adorned with a picture of a smiling Mads. With several staff members present, Made duly signs said clock face and stands by admiringly as it is positioned on the wall of number 96. It doesn't take much to change the atmosphere in the pits and behind the scenes but we're all more than happy at the moment.

And so the the meeting. It was always going to be difficult because despite our best efforts, we still hadn't got enough water into the track and it began to cut up during the warm up laps.

With large sections of track surface moving under the pressure of the spinning tyres we soon had significant amounts of loose dirt mounding up mid to wide track. And then it happened.

Stan Burza ran into trouble on turn 2 and clattered into the fence. He was OK but the fence wasn't. A great section had been ripped out. Our worst nightmare - a change of panel mid meeting.

But it all went as well, if not better than anticipated. Last year I saw a bag changed in 20 minutes at another track and there are stories of even longer periods of time. We had set ourselves 7 minutes for a complete change, and got it done in 5! The cable ties at the bottom of the panel held it in place perfectly when Burza hit the fence yet were so easy to cut when we removed the panel.

We brought the turn 3 and 4 spare down to turn 1 (incase anyone else should feel like emanating Mr Burza's antics) and then brought a new spare out from the pits. Some wag shouted out, "Hope you've got plenty of spare bags!"

He wasn't far off the mark. The track was making masses of dirt, far more than we would have liked and a number of riders were getting out of shape as back wheels suddenly gripped in the deep stuff. The fence came under threat on more than one occasion as the night went on.

On the track we used the small blade and the mesh to bring back the dirt closer to the white line and then spread it out, but it was a full time job. The last water went on to a track that was looking decidedly second hand but that still allowed Chris Harris to come within a tenth of a second of the track record.

The meeting ended with Harris' desperate (and that's a charitable way of describing it) lunge under Troy Bathcelor on turn 3. The Aussie and his back thundered into the air fence on turn 3 and I could have sworn that another panel had gone. Fortuitously rider and air fence were battered and bruised but not broken.

It took us over an hour to put the track back in shape for next week's meeting.

Gerald is off to the States for a flying visit over the weekend to see the results of his consultancy work for the new speedway track at Rochester in New York state. Hopefully in the next blog we'll be able to feature some of his snaps of this nascent development.

Until then, pray for light rain throughout next Wednesday night.