It's an oft heard phrase - "It's the pits" and one that could be applied in three very different ways on the day that Sky came a calling. The first two uses of the phrase apply to the new construction of our extension to the pit complex here at Swindon and the fact that, because Sky come on a Monday and it's a day when there is a day time greyhound broadcast, we have to sit around for four hours and watch as the track dries out under a unduly clement April sky while the doggies strut their stuff.
The third usage of the phrase will be covered later on in this blog.
If truth be known, we've never been entirely happy with pits area at Swindon. Apparently the lay out was approved by John Davis back in the last century, the most contentious aspect being the very small and cramped home pit area. The fact that the reserve pits were positioned at the bottom of a slope down from the main pit area, and therefore filled with rain water every time it rained, didn't help matters.
But now it's all going to be changing and the Blog is here to bring you the very first pictures of the new extension.
Our good friend Mark Sealey, long time supporter of Swindon Speedway (and sponsor of Charlie Gjedde - but we wont hold that against him too much) has had his lads up at the track over the weekend and they have done a great job in extending the old reserve pits so that there are now 7 impressively large pit bays, easily accommodating an away team complete with spare bikes.
At the end of the bay Ronnie has cleverly added a sand trap area which will be used as our environmental base for waste oil. The cans will sit in the sand, be filled by used oil and then taken away for processing. Any excess oil will be absorbed by the sand, and the polluted sand will be similarly dealt with. Clever stuff!!
With the three new bays waiting for a roof, which will be fitted before the Belle Vue match in just over a week's time, Mark and his lads start to cut through the old exterior wall so that riders will be able to see straight up through all 7 bays.
After one of his lads had cut through the blocks with a cutter Mark wields a sledgehammer with elan and breaks through.
The idea is that these pits will become the new Away pit, with space for each away rider to have two bikes easily accommodated in each bay.
The old away pits will be used as storage space for extra bikes for the Robins and and old, and very small, area used for away reserves will house the compressor and will also double up as a store for our air pumps, if we can get doors on it.
We've already been out on the track since 8 o'clock. While Gerald drives the big water tanker, Punch and I pump all the excess rain water off the bags and then inflate them.
We have a limited amount of track prep time on a Monday because there is what is called a "Bags" meeting for the greyhounds between 10am and 2pm.
We water the track as much as possible in the hope that we can get as much moisture down into the base as possible. The track is very hard at the moment and the bright April sunshine, more redolent of July, will draw up an enormous amount of moisture that we need to stop the whole surface from crumbling into dust.
And so we deflate the air fence and retire to the nether areas of the pits. Unusually, the Sky vans haven't appeared yet so Gerald and I wander round the back of the pits to have a look at what is going on in the world of greyhound racing.
There is hardly anyone on the terraces - these races will be beamed into thousands of betting shops throughout Europe and form a very lucrative income for the stadium owners at Blunsdon.
Lord knows, I have had a few "pops" at greyhound racing in the blog over the years, but each to his own. No doubt some people derive great pleasure from watching greyhound racing - but it doesn't inspire me.
In the background the Sky vans are now appearing - some who rely upon Sat Nav systems have been caught out by the new by pass outside the stadium and, as one of the drivers of one of the very large lorries added, "It's f.......g difficult to do a three point turn on one of these when you realise that you've missed the turning and re heading to Cirencester."
As yet another race starts the only sound, other than the buzzing of the cable as it pulls the hare round the rails, and the sound of dogs howling from the kennels, is the tap, tap, tap of all the scaffolding teams that are working away as quietly as possible to erect the studio on turn 3 and the camera positions around the track.
There's not a lot we can do. We can't stand in the pits because apparently if the dogs see us as they race round they are prone to losing interest in the race and simply running off.
Punch, as usual, has lots to keep himself occupied with. One minute he's on a small digger, the next he's in the JCB and then I come across him sharpening the blade of the mower that Arron uses to keep the centre green grass pristine. Sadly, Punch's work is to no avail; whilst the blade is being sharpened, the mower is given a service but sadly some oil leaks onto the main belt that drives the blade and when the belt starts to move it heats the oil which in turn melts the belt. Bang! The whole thing packs up in seconds.
The track looks to be holding the water quite well under the brilliant blue sky but we're not sure if any of it is really getting down into the base.
And all the time more and more vehicles associated with a live broadcast are arriving.
In addition to the main control / studio van there are lorries with cables and telecommunications equipment, not forgetting the very large catering lorry that has to be found space for.
A large blue mini van arrives and is connected up via numerous cables to the large studio van. I haven't seen this one before and am intrigued as to its purpose.
When the side door is opened it becomes clear; this is where the producer sits with feeds from all of the cameras. Previously this had been done from the large pantecknican.
I am always surprised by the sheer numbers of staff employed by an outside broadcasting team, but then I suppose everyone has their own particular area of expertise and in times of fiscal belt tightening everyone must be necessary. But there are a lot of Sky people around.
The dog meeting is still running as I take the last photographs of the setting up of the transmission disk and the final adjustments to the production studio.
Punch has found a new job to keep him occupied and, for the want of anything else to do, I join him.
At the far end of the car park behind the pits there has always been a rather untidy area filled with old shale and some newer scalpings. Punch has hatched an idea to tidy up the area and give us somewhere to park up the vehicles we wont be using for the the rest of the day. He uses the mini digger to move the scalpings into a neat mound in the far corner and then scoops up the shale with the JCB and deposits it over the wall into the area where we park the tractors during a meeting. This has also been a rather untidy area. Together we dig, scoop and deposit while Keith Johnson, another who has taken a day off work, rakes it all flat and even.
And still the doggies run ...
As can be seen above, Keith and Gerald are riveted by the action.
Ronnie organises a sweepstake on one race. He exhorts me to join in. I have no money on me but he';s prepared to take an IOU for the £1 stake. There's only one dog no taken so I get the one in blue ... which promptly romps to victory. That's £5 for the tea fund! Maybe this greyhound caper is growing on me ... or is it unbridled greed (the sort that the Rugby Football Union suffer from when they fleeced me £30 to park my car at Twickenham on the previous Saturday).
At last the "Bags" meeting comes to an end and then all hell breaks loose. The dogs are hardly off the track when the air pumps are fired into action and we get started.
The trouble is that we have lost four extremely valuable hours of work on what is for us, and every other track, an extremely important Sky meeting.
We shouldn't complain about the weather, at least not after last week's excessive dose of the wet stuff, but the bright sun and the drying wind has drawn out most, if not all of the water we put into it earlier and then a bit more.
I concentrate on the air fences and, with Keith, we inflate and then hook up the blue catch fencing. The banners are relatively clean from last Thursday - we washed them in the morning and then took them back down clean when it was called off mid afternoon.
Back in the pits more Sky people have arrived including the new Sky lady, 26 year old Sheffield born Charlie Webster. Her web site shows that she has quite extensive sports reporting experience for one so young although most of it appears to be football related with a bit of motor racing's GP2. In all fairness, her first few broadcasts with the speedway team have been better than some of the earlier efforts of her predecessors. For a breakdown on the Sky presenters follow this link. Those who misguidedly have continued to read the blog over the years will know that I have my favourite Sky presenters, namely the incomparable Suzi Perry and the delightful Sarra Elgan. Sarra, married to a man mountain of an Irish rugby player (so no comments from me here) is pregnant and is taking time out from the speedway work, although I have been told she will return. In the meantime we have
As I wander through the back of the pits area I spy Flo (aka Karen), our Sports Therapist and the maker of the most extraordinary fruit cakes in the world, complete with her "shopping." "Have bag, will travel" springs to mind but I think better of it; who knows when I will require the ministrations of the wonderful Flo!
Everywhere you go you find Sky cameras pointing at you and when they are not focused on you, they are filming each other, filming each other.
Back up at the tractor park I can see the results of all the hard work of the morning. Punch and Keith have done a great job filling in all the holes and leveling the place.
Alongside is the new position for the Sky Studio. It is now high up on the banking above turn 3. The version from last year that lifted up hydraulically has now been replaced by a rigid structure. Rumours abound that Kelvin, in particular, didn't like the hydraulic version - it was too unstable, the rumour goes. Certainly, when I was up at Wolverhampton last year with the BBC I saw Leigh Adams take great pleasure in shaking it vigorously and collapse in fits of laughter as Kelvin clung on for dear life before uttering Anglo Saxon oaths of a particularly personal nature.
Gary Patchett arrives in the pits with a passenger; it's Nigel Pearson, crack commentator with the Sky Speedway team. Unfortunately Nigel is incapacitated at the moment and can only walk, extremely uncomfortably, with the aid of a crutch. I make a joke about gout and lascivious living, only to find that the poor chap does indeed have gout in knee and ankle and is in significant pain. That discomfort in heightened when he finds out how far he has to walk to get to the studio. Still, at least they've put a pair of chairs up there for Kelvin and he (and that's why they commentate on the meeting from a seated position.
Rosco moves a new bike belonging to the ever likeable Jurica while I get the chance to speak with the impossibly nice Niels Kristian Iversen. Quietly spoken , with English far better than comes across on the TV, he was universally feted as being the track staff's favourite visiting rider last year for the wonderfully exuberant way that he attacked the Blunsdon banking last year. With throttle wide open and leg thrown back, reminiscent of speedway riders of my youth, he just was wonderful to watch. He looks over the pit gate and immediately notices the changes recently wrought to the Blunsdon track. "Where's the banking gone?" I explain what has been done but he doesn't look all that happy. Later, in commentary, Nigel claims that NKI doesn't particularly like the Blunsdon track, but that's not what Niels told me!
As the riders prepare their bikes a bombshell goes off in the pits. I can tell that our Clerk of the Course, Mick Hunt, is not happy just from the expression on his face. Maybe the referees's found a major problem? He calls me over. The track and the fences are all fine. But ... and it's a big but ... there has been a meeting at the track involving Sky and representatives from the speedway tracks and an agreement about restricting the numbers of track staff out on the centre green has been brokered.
Now, for political reasons I wont go into too much detail here, now, but the essence was that they wanted only 4 track staff per corner, that's just 8 out on the centre green, including flag marshals. Jim Lawrence, who I must thank for taking the time out to speak to me about the rationale for the decision, explains that it is part of the re-negotiations around the Sky speedway deal and that they want to address the overall impression that the sport gives to the television viewer. Apparently the original agreement had bee for just 3 track staff per corner (and in this case turns 1 and 2 count as just 1 corner). I point out that we have a dedicated team of trained staff, all in uniforms, not wont to wander around aimlessly in packs on the centre green. I point out the sheer size of track surface that we have to work with here. I emphasise that it is a tried and tested system here at Swindon and that the time to experiment is not in front of a televised audience of hundreds of thousands. I underline that the one size fits all type agreement is dead in the water and that we all want the best for the sport so why not consult those who have to do the work and listen to what they have to say. Surface area, sweep of corners, banking, shale conditions (heavy or light), length of air fence, use of banners are all contributory factors and are not constant across all speedway tracks.
The track staff are revolting (yes, I've thought carefully about that). Many drive significant distances to get here, everyone knows their job in the team work we've developed over the years here, and it take some careful explanations from Keith and I in a staff meeting back of the pits. When I tell Jim and Colin Meredith that we've met and the track staff have decided to strike they both blanche. It's a joke! But they're not happy.
By the end of the meeting neither am I. Keith and I get the required numbers out on the centre green and swap people in and out during the meeting but there is a difference between a few people working manically for 30 minutes and then taking a breather and a larger number working at their usual steady pace throughout the night. We're are really lucky that the track is light tonight. If it had been wet and heavy we would have had real problems. As it is, way too much material gathers on the boards on the straights and around the air fence, we can't get the top of the fence swept properly and it feels as if we are simply managing a situation rather than doping the type of job that we want to do and that we are capable of doing.
The sight of two members of staff at the end of the meeting looking decidedly ill confirms my suspicion that this is a problematical situation. These guys have already put in a full day at work before coming to the track and will be up at the crack of dawn to go to work the following morning - they should not be as exhausted as they are and I fear that we will lose some of our most experience staff if something isn't done about it.
As the tractors start to put the track to bed I get a chance to hunt through the pits for some photos. Sam, always ready to pose for a photograph, interviews Niels.
The initial response has been a good one - the racing has been good and the presentation has matched it.
I catch up with Jim Lawrence and point out my concerns about the staffing. He agrees to reflect that back the next time the committee meets. He and Steve, from Sky, pose for a photograph as the lights begin to dim around the circuit.
I should be happy (no air bags needed changing, everything went to time and result was a good win for Swi9ndon and for speedway in general.
It's just that I had this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach (see, the word pit comes up again, as promised) and it wasn't caused by indigestion. I just wish people would talk more ... but that's for the future.
Now it's all eyes on the first GP and our Mr Holta. Go, Rune!!
