In this, the second part, of “A Thursday in the life of …”, it’s time to describe the afternoon work of a member of the track staff here at Swindon.

From 8am we will have been working on putting up and washing the air fence, cleaning and sorting the banners, filling up all the pumps with fuel, washing down the electronic scoreboard, sweeping out the pits, vacuuming the changing rooms and working on the track.  With a bit of luck we will have escaped mid morning to the cosy confines of Number 96 (the track staff room) for a cup of coffee and a slice of Flo’s homemade fruit cake.

1pm and time for lunch.  The workforce repairs to Number 96 (so called because Rod “Punch” Ford found a door abandoned by the side of a road and brought it up to the track where it was installed as entrance to the staff room.)  It bore the number 96, hence the name.  Incidentally, Flo’s physio room next door now boasts the number 94 while the broom cupboard / pump room which also was the Clerk of the Course’s room last year was oft referred to as Number 90.  As I write this I become increasingly aware that perhaps we do exist in a parallel universe up here on the windswept top of Blunsdon Hill.

You can sit anywhere in the staff room, except on Gerald’s chair and certainly not on Punch’s.  You can drink from any cup, except for Gerald’s and Punch’s.  A pattern is emerging here, but it would be wrong to say that this is a hierarchical, exclusive club.  There’s always banter between the members of the work force.  Gerald’s dual role as curator at both Lakeside and Swindon ensures that he gets his fair share of flack about the Essex lads while Punch regales us of tales yesteryear at the Abbey.

One factor that we are always aware of is the weather.  You have to work with and around the weather – it dictates what we do and how we do it.  Extremes are in many ways easier than the marginals.  A hot and windy day will drive any clouds over us quickly and will necessitate regular watering of the track.  Pouring rain and we have methods to try to dry out the surface (we have only had a couple of rain offs in the last two years). It’s that “will it, wont it” type of weather that has us jumping up and down throughout the day.  If we water and it rains then we’re done for; if we hold on the water and it doesn’t rain then we face running on a dust bowl.  Damned if you do; damned if you don’t!

Already this season we have been able to offer day time practice to some of the Robins.  In Poland and, occasionally in Sweden, day time practices are available but in England, where so many stadia are dual usage, it’s difficult to organise.  Thursday is the only day of the week, bar Sunday, where we can have exclusive use of the stadium, and we need as much time as possible on race day to get the stadium ready for a meeting.  Stoj, Troy and Ryan have all been out for mid day practice sessions.  Whilst we are more than happy to work around this, it does compromise much of our work.  The track has to be put into a ready state for the practice and then carefully re-laid again once practice is finished. Normally we would like at least a day or so for the surface to bind again; with practice sessions we have a matter of hours.

While Gerald, Punch and, latterly Ronnie, work away on the track the other staff set to sorting out the banners that will be fitted to the air fence.  Once we have the sets organised they are taken out and the banners fixed to the fronts of the air fence.  Velcro holds them in place and we try to ensure that each banner straddles two air bags, strengthening the link between the bags themselves.  In windy conditions, and when is it not windy at Blunsdon, we have “Mary Poppins” moments, hanging on to the blessed things as the wind catches them.  The banners overlap and we need to make sure that the overlaps are always facing the way that the riders are riding.  In this way, a rider circulating too close to the air fence will not rip lengths of banners away with an errant foot rest.  A set of spare banners is placed near the white line on each corner, together with a spare air bag.

After the banners are up I like to check on all of the pumps to make sure that they are topped up with petrol.  Once this is done I set off again to a local petrol station for another large can of fuel.  Running 7 air pumps, a couple of generators, two vehicles, a pressure washer and other pieces of kit on petrol means that we need about three jerry cans of fuel for each meeting.  A ban on carrying more than one in any vehicle means that I have to make three journeys each week.

While I am running around others are helping to; top dress the track with a thin layer of new shale; put down the boards on the greyhound track where the tractors drive; keeping the Mowlex water tanker filled; hanging graders, blades and rippers on the back of the tractors; and assisting wherever and whenever Gerald requires.

Four o’clock and time to rip the starting gate area and the exits to turns 2 and 4.  The Robins like the starting area well ripped and then packed down.  While Gerald rips we make sure that the water cart is close by so that the freshly loosened material can be dampened down.  If we don’t then the first race will create a dust cloud over Swindon.  Ripped down about an inch or so, the wettened material is then lightly packed down with tractor wheels.  We repeat the exercise on the exits to turns 2 and 4 to reward the rider who wishes to drive up the inside with plenty of grip.  The banking at Swindon has always encouraged the big blast around the outside; by ripping the inside exits we want to assist the skilful rider to cut back underneath.

The rest of the work on the track itself is now entirely governed by the weather and here the expertise of Gerald and Punch comes to the fore.  With over 40 years of experience at Blunsdon Punch’s opinion is always one to listen to while Gerald has so many years experience producing tracks around the world that their combined body of knowledge is second to none.

My next task is to clean the white line with the pressure washer.  The rule book states that there must be a continuous line around the inside of the track.  During grading the while line is often covered with loose shale; the pressure washer soon has this looking good.  Once this is done it is time to inflate the air fence panel that covers the pit gate and wash it down.  It will be put into place at 6.30pm in time for the referee’s inspection.

Security fences are put up around the pits area, tools organised for the track rakers and then it’s time to get changed into our “A C Nurden” overalls.

By now the referee will have finished his, or her, inspection.  I like to meet up with them and Clerk of the Course Mick Hunt at this point so that any problems can be ironed out.  At just after 7pm I make one final check around the fences looking for any kickboards that are out of place, buckles that have not been done up tightly enough etc.  With engine supremo Bob Crowther, I fire up the extra three air pumps and adjust them to achieve the required air pressure in the air fence and then it’s just a case of waiting for the parade truck and the start of the meeting.

11 hours down and only 3 to go, but that’s another story.