I could not have been more pleased when I arrived in the pit area on Thursday. Under heavy grey clouds, in temperatures more akin to January and with rain in the air, I came across Gavin from Janair, already set up and working hard on our air bags.
Those who have followed the blog will know that I have a love / hate relationship with the air fence at Blunsdon. Today, those two opposites would be set in stark contrast, but more of that later.
With heavy duty electric sewing machine running we set about identifying weak areas in a number of air panels and then trying to re-stitch the thick and extremely inflexible material. Gavin's been working in the "Bouncy Castle" business for some time and has a real expertise in this area, and he certainly needs it with some of our air panels.
Whilst I can repair the odd small hole here and there, I cannot do anything about ripped seams, large tears or the effects of delamination. Our main concern at the moment is the loss of air along the long lengths of air fence that surround the track.
Last week I took all of turn 3's air fence apart to check for ill fitting air pipes and large holes. I found nothing. With little else to try, I moved the air pumps further away from the gate panel, on towards the centre of the turn. Now the fact that the air is running up and down the length of the air fence through the panels and from panel to panel through lengths of plastic piping should mean that the actual placement of the pumps is an irrelevance. In fact, just moving the pump 10 metres made a huge difference. But, although the battle had been won, the war hadn't - I still hadn't been able to identify any major problems.
A glance at the panels themselves quickly shows some of the of the major problems that we cannot do anything about. The material is now very inflexible and borders on the brittle in places. Where it is brittle, cracks occur and the plastic coating on top of the weave begins to crack away (delamination). Where this happens the air seeps out. Also, when the bags are inflated there is an obvious pressure upon all of the seams and the stitching. The stitches themsleves begin to pull and that allows air to escape.
Another problem concerns the yellow inflatable skirts that were sewn onto the front of each bag at the bottom. These were added, a couple of years after the original manufacture, to help keep the the panels standing upright, pushing the fronts up. The trouble is that in some cases seams from these yellow inserts have been sewn, not by Gavin I hasten to add, onto other seams so that there is a thickness of plastic and stitching that is just prone to damage.
We manhandle the bags onto the working surface and try to fit the material into the sewing machine. Needles snap under the strain, the wind howls through the pit area and the rain starts to fall almost horiziontally (I know that's not possible but you know what I mean). We are prompted to ask just why we do this. I can't come up with an answer until my hands are thawed out by a warming cup of coffee and a delicious slice of Flo's latest fruit and nut cake, delivered to us personally by the lady herself.
With the worst of the panels repaired as best we can, Gavin and I survey the standing panels. As we leave the pits I catch young Arron returning from his lawn mowing duties on the centre green. Hampered by low flying banners that are being whipped around the stadium in the gale force winds, he seeks refuge in the pit area. But as he passes a prominent sign (see above) is that a cigarette I spy in his cupped hand?
Out on the greyhound track, Gavin, Mark Price and I decide to split up the air pumps even more and use two old pumps that Gavin has kindly donated to our cause. We decide to site one on the exit of turn 4. Down on the large sweep of turns 1 and 2 we decide to separate the two pumps that traditionally operate down there, placing one close to the entrance to turn 1 and the other near the exit of turn 2. We place the second of Gavin's donated pumps centrally. Each will be fitted with a double flute. A "flute" is the unit that attaches to the neck of the air pump and directs air down into the bags themselves. We've been using single flutes - pushing air down just one pipe into an air bag - Gavin suggests that we use twin flutes - two pipes - in each case. This should greatly improve the air flow into the bags. By adding two more pumps we should be able to run all of the available pumps at less than 100% and be better able to adjust pressures in each set of air panels.
The theory sounds good, but will it work? We return to the pits, make up the new flutes, cut the necessary holes in the wire safety fence to allow the pipes through and then inflate the fences. The results are startling. Turn 4 is now so solid that it is more like a bouncy castle - a rider hurtling into this fence would bounce back. We can actually turn the pumps down to a pressure that will absorb a rider impact safely. Job very well done.
Gavin departs - he's got masses of work on at the moment and seems to be supplying half of the Elite and Premier Leagues with safety equipment. Mark and I adjust the air pumps down to tick over.
Out on the centre green Adam, Arron and Mick Richards have been battling with the wind as they try and clean last week's banners. As another banner takes off sending Adam scuttling for safety, I wonder about the wisdom of this exercise in these conditions.
The wind and the rain are whipping around the stadium. I get a late morning phone call from a friend asking if the meeting is still on. The answer is yes. In fact, even though the squalls become quite sharp we are still having to water the surface to counteract the drying effect of the wind.
Punch dons his all weather outfit, looking more like an advertisement for a certain brand of fish product than a track man. But he's more than sensible. Gerald, up front and driving the tractor, is unlikely to be caught by a blast of icey water, carried from the back by the wind. Punch however, is in for a right dowsing.
As soon as the pump is switched on the water meant for the track is caught and deposited on the hapless Punch. Oaths of an Anglo Saxon origin can be heard before they too are swept away by the wind.
By mid afternoon the rain clouds have departed, been blasted easterly on the wind. It is still bitingly cold as we set about trying to capture the banners from all parts of the stadium and then fix them in place on the air fence. At times it takes four of us (Mark, Arron, Adam and myself) to hold just one banner down. The new, double sized ones are a nightmare and once again I am reminded of Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and Tigger as they are carried away whilst hanging on to balloons.
The top of the surface is dressed with a fine caoating of shale and then Gerald sets about ripping the starts and the exits of turn 2 and 4. This is not a new practice - we've been doing this for the last three years. Swindon riders like plenty of traction out of the gates and then we encourage a low exit to turns 2 and 4 by giving the rider capable of hitting close to the white line a real blast of grip.
Much has been made of the extra passing at Blunsdon so far this season but from where I stand, on turn 3, it looks about the same. Having travelled quite extensively to other tracks around the country I would say we get as much, and more than most other tracks, given the fact that Blusndon is such a fast track with such long straights. There are many lines that can be taken but the fast blast around mid to high track is still the most popular, simply because you can maintain your entry speed into the corners and drive through them. As Charlie Gjedde found out to his cost in the 60th anniversary bash, trying to slow down entry speed into turn 3 so that you can really get down low and into the grip out of 4 means that you are likely to have someone right up your exhaust pipe as you slow. Cue, Ryan Fisher who happened upon the slowing Mr Gjedde and had nowhere to go but into him.
If there is a "must" at Blunsdon it is the crucial exit of turn 2. It doesn't matter how much in control of the race you are, if you get the exit of 2 wrong you will be passed on the exit of turn 4. The reason? Momentum! I would not mind a wager that the majority of passes on turns 3 and 4 have been brought about because a rider has missed his exit on turn 2. That means an unnecessary adjustment on the back straight and a loss of speed. That causes a slowish entry to turn 3. Drift out wide and the pursuers will cut underneath, keep low on the white line and, even with the extra grip on turn 4, the pursuer will blast around you. Try to drift out on turn 4 and the clever rider (Mr Adams) will make a sharp cut back mid turn and dive under you. How much of that can be seen from the terraces I don't know, but from up close to the white line on turn 3 it's all too clear.
Late afternoon and with the white line clean and the boards brushed, we are ready for action. I take some time to walk around the outside of the track checking on the air pumps. The two that Gavin gave us have been switched off and will not be started up and connected until just before the start of the meeting. They will be used merely to boost and then regulate the air flow and pressure. Elsewhere, the new double flutes are working very well - much better than I could have anticipated. We have had the pumps running on tickover yet still keeping the fences up.
We use a lot of petrol each meeting - generators for the car park lighting; 6 air pumps; motor mower for the centre green; pressure washer; water pump; the Robins bus; the blue Ford pick up. There's no way we can reduce our fuel bill. Some have suggested that we switch off the air pumps to the air panels during the day. We actually can't do this because that would leave the air fences hanging from hooks attached to the wire safety fence. Such is the weight of each panel that seams would tear very quickly and the wire safety fence inexorably pulled inwards.
Last week we welcomed the riders, promotion and supporters of the Lejonen team from the Gislaved club in Sweden. I took a copy of the Swedish Tour book that I wrote after our week long sojourn there in August 2007 to get representatives from Lejonen to sign it. Leigh Adams, himself a new recruit to the Lejonen ranks for 2009, was more than interested in the photographs of the track at Gislaved - "I don't think I've ever been there," he said. As I showed him the pictures of the great natural bowl that makes up the Gislaved track it suddenly struck me that Blunsdon is very similar with the notable exceptions of a lack of conifer trees a round the periphery and a dog track. The picture above right, taken from the banking on turn 4, is very similar to some taken in Sweden. Incidentally, to read the diary account of our Swedish trip, access it through the Blog's menu bar above.
And so to the meeting. While Jurica's bikes were in the pits, the young man wasn't. He had been involved in some sort of traffic accident either in Croatia or Poland and had missed his flight. Re-arrangements had been made, at some considerable cost, to fly him in via Munich, but getting him to Blunsdon by 7.30 was always going to be tight. (In fact he made it with minutes to spare).
Team Adams were their usual well organised and immaculate selves, main mechanic Billy overseeing everything.
Sponsorship and corporate hospitality are very important to all sports and we take them very seriously here at Swindon. Steve Masters (Lionel) has prodeuced a new back drop sign for when Sky come calling for the televised match at Blunsdon in April. It features all of our sponsors and associates (A C Nurden, George White, MOTO-ME, M and S Van Hire and our link up with a local charity, Prospect House.)
At the pit gate I meet up with our good friend Christina Turnbull, who will be refereeing tonight's encounter, and a young Polish trainee referee, whose name escapes me at present.
Jeff Scott introduced me to Christina a couple of years ago when she first joined the ranks of Elite League referees. She's a delightful person, full of humour and good common sense. It's her first meeting of the year (her second will be the televised encounter between Poole and Swindon on Sky this cmoning Monday - so no pressure there then!) Christina must be a good referee because Stan Potter, our start marshall has nothing but good to say about her, and you should hear what he has to say about some of the others who come to occupy the referee's box during a season here.
While Christina and her young Polish trainee go out to inspect the track the Wolves riders are returning from their track walk. This year's septet look a much better unit than last year's Wolverhampton team. It's good to see Peter Karlsson back in the Elite League - quite why he hasn't been a regular over the last couple of years has always been a mystery to me.
The temperature is plunging and the moisture is beginning to rise. The track looks a bit tacky in places but everyone seems happy enough with it. Problems occur on breezy, cold evenings. The wind dries the surface in places while the cold brings out moisture elsewhere. It's really difficult to get the balance right. It's a times like this that experience of a track comes to the fore, and it's good that Punch and Gerald know this track so well and can anticipate problems before they manifest themselves.
At the pit gate the lads from Re-Run Videos grab Peter Karlsson for an interview while Edwin Hutchison and I talk with Christina, who has come back to see us with a couple of requests - a clip that has come undone on a turn 4 air panel and a slight concern about the relative proximity of the wooden structures, that the greyhound traps go on, to the main safety fence. Edwin sorts out the straps on the air fence while I get a work force to move the offending wooden structures as far from the safety fence as possible.
In the pits our doubling up rider, the likeable American Ryan Fisher (borrowed from Edinburgh for the night) goes through a warming up routine. Nearby Travis McGowan, almost completely enveloped in a tent like coat, visualises a race.
Engines are warmed up, riders clamber on board the trailer for the presentation, we fit the pit gate air bag and ramp up the pumps to the correct pressure and try to anticipate what might go wrong.
I referred to my love / hate relationship with the air fence. At times it has driven me to distraction - at others I thank God that we have an air fence.
And tonight I am left thanking God! I copy the comments left on the excellent Speedway Updates service :
Heat 04: Batchelor, Lindgren, Stichauer 66.15 3-3 Comments: Kerr slid off 1st bend and took Lindgren out who was coming round outside. Slight delay while they check the air fence. Batchelor away, very tight on bend 2. Fisher went under Kerr and Lindgren and all 3 went down. Kerr went through the air fence. Fisher excluded. Lindgren and Fisher up and ok. Kerr in ambulance going back to the pits for a check over but he is awake. Lindgren hit one end of air fence and Fisher the other causing it to fly off and Kerr hit the bare fence. He is still in medical room being assessed. Stichauer comes in as reserve replacement. From the gate by miles. Stichauer miles out the back.
In an accident of extraordinary violence, even from where I stood at the other end of the circuit, Fisher and possibly Lindgren hurtled into the air fence with enormous speed, the fence absorbed their impact but was pulled out of place. As it folded up around the two Chris Kerr crashed under the fence. Most of the impact was absorbed by the air bag and the kickboards, whose velcro held firm, but he did hit the safety fence behind the air bags and cracked three small wooden pegs used to hold up the low boards we have to keep back the worst of the sand from the dog track.
With Fisher and Lindgren shaken and stirred but sufficiently capable of walking back to the pits, I arrived at the scene of devastation. All track staff know that they must not approach striken riders (the St Johns are there for that) nor move any equipment unless given the go ahead by the member of track staff in charge of that area of the track, in this case Keith Johnson. Chris Kerr was being held up right by a member of the St Johns ambulance while actually being behind the air panel. White as a sheet, he was clearly in a state of shock. Until he was moved we could not get on with any repairs. Up close you really realise how violent and dangerous this sport of ours is. Quite how some correspondents on the otherwise excellent Speedway Updates could criticise a rider who has taken a tumble of this magnitude is beyond me.
Kerr is lifted onto a stretcher. Colour is coming back to his face and he jokes that it's the most comforatble bed he's slept in for a long time. We wish him well. No one wants to see an injured rider. He thanks us for our attention and instantly endears himself to all around..
As soon as the track staff were able to get to the accident scene, bungs were put into the ends of the air fence to prevent the whole lot from deflating. We check the air bag which had suffered the impact and can find no obvious problems. Connecting it up again it begins to inflate. All seems well. But then we realise that it is deflating again. The impact has opened up a huge gaping hole along a front seam and that the buckles have been ripped out. We remove the bag and replace it with a spare from the centre green. While the bend 1 team complete the installation, the turn 3 team carry the striken bag back to the pits, take the turn 3 / 4 spare bag down to turns 1 and 2 and then collect a new bag from the pits. The whole delay has been over 10 minutes but most of that was in securing the safety of Chris Kerr.
Satisfied that everything is OK, Mick Hunt informs Christina and the race is re-run. I shudder to think what would have happened if we hadn't had the air bags. Three bikes and three riders all hitting a solid wall or even a wire fence and we could have had carnage. In actuality Chris Kerr withdraws from the meeting whilst Ryan and Freddie are fit to take the rest of their rides.
There'll be quite a lot of work to be done next week, including some more work for Gavin, our saviour, who is bringing back the rest of our air panels and who will have quite a stitching job on his hands from this week's escapades.
