We're a little on the late side with this but, gulping back the frustration of seeing Rune miss out on a semi final place on countback and the sight of the glorious Leszno circuit transformed into a dusty car park by Messrs Olsen and co., we've been celebrating here in Malmesbury. Why? Because my beloved Shrewsbury Town won through to a Play Off Final place at Wembley yesterday in an amazingly tense and exciting match away against Bury. It all went down to penalties in the end but we got through and Dave and I will be donning our blue and yellow and making the trek down to the new Wembley for the "Big One" against the mighty Gillingham. Then to find that Jensen Button had won his 4th F1 GP and Cal Crutchlow had won the Supersport race at Monza in Itlay and the weekend doesn't get much better.
The lead photograph sets up a little competition. The team above don't ride in the UK but they do feature an old friend of the Blog and of Swindon Speedway. Who are they and who is he? The answers at the bottom of this blog. Another question, this time without, as yet, an answer, is why does Jordon Frampton, the Coventry reserve, have the name "Holta" emblazoned in yellow lettering on both arms of his race suit? Is he a closet fan? Should the Rune Holta GB fan club increase its membership by 100% to 2?
But to work. Once again we will be without Gerald, the track curator, so it will be Punch and Ronnie managing things for the meeting against Poole.
At the end of the last meeting we removed all of the kickboards so that they could be properly cleaned. Thank goodness for the velcro fastening - I would never have even counternounced it with the old system of cable ties. The removal fo the kickboards has revealed the yellow inflatable strip that was put onto the air bags a couple of years ago to help stand them upright, but which has in fact been the bane of our lives ever since. Stitching this additional section to an already rather thick seam has caused all manner of holes to appear and it is mainly for this reason that we are having to use extra air pumps just to maintain pressure in the air bags. Without the kickboards in place I can hear the air escaping from the front of the bags as I walk alongside them.
Another problem appears; shale, kicked up against the kickboards and down the joins between the air bags, has built up in mounds at the bottom of each bag. Punch and I dig it all out while Ronnie brings the small blade as close as possible to drag the excess shale away.
While Arron and Adam help Roy and Mick with the banners, Mark Price and I collect the newly washed kickboards from the pits.
Made of thick rubber, and very heavy, these strips attach to the bottom of the air fence and help to prevent too much shale from being pushed under the air fence whilst also preventing riders from following.
Velcro on both sides is designed to fasten the kickboard to the air panel and then the banner to the kickboard. Properly fitted, the kickboards should reach down to the track surface and then some. Shale can then lay on the bottom of the rubber, holding it down in place.
Putting the kickboards back takes much longer than taking them off and I spend the best part of an hour on my hands and knees getting the overlaps right. The weakest part of an air fence is the join between panels. We strengthen that area by overlapping the advertising banners across the join and also by overlapping the kickboards.
Once the boards have all been done and the fence hooked up Mark and I turn our attention to the articulated panel that was originally designed to work as the pit gate entrance.
In the years that I've been working at Blunsdon we've often talked about the "hinged gate panel" but never actually used it; in fact, it's taken on an almost mythical aura. I found the panel in question when we were clearing out around the pits area at the end of last season and then sent it off to Gavin at Janair together with all the other panels. It didn't come back at the start of this season so we went ahead and carried on using a heavily modified full length panel for the gate. When Gavin bought the hinged panel back last week I decided to give it a try.
It is literally two half sized panels joined at the front. Two flexible air tubes allow the air to flow around it. We inflated it, patched two rather significant holes and then tried it out. We had to make some modifications to the positions of the panels on either side of the gate but soon had it in place. We then cable tied an old kickboard to the front and took it out onto the centre green for a good cleaning with the pressure washer.
Out on the track Ronnie has been gouging out a series of close knit striations (grooves) in the very hard track surface. After the rain of last week we've not seen any water this week and the whole track is very hard and very dry. Simply watering it would do very little apart from using up some of our precious supply of the wet stuff. With the banking that we have, water simply runs straight off the track, down the white line and into the main drain. The grooves hold water and then allow it to drain slowly into the base.
By mid afternoon the track is beginning to show the benefits of the watering and the gouging. The weather forecast suggests there will be no rain today, but we can't help but look up at the gathering clouds with a degree of suspicion. But England are taking wickets in the Test Match so all can't be bad!
With the track sufficiently wet, Ronnie starts to apply a liberal coating of top dressing. This is a clay based shale and the moisture in the surface will at least allow it to bind. Once it's been applied it is then graded and then lightly tyre packed in.
A very thorough ripping of the starts now takes place. An analysis of recent meetings shows that gate 1 has not been as effective as the other three so it attracts special attention.
Once the ripping is complete the material is wetted and then lightly tyre packed with a tractor. The relative looseness of the material will give riders plenty of grip at the start before they move onto the more hard packed parts of the racetrack.
Speedway Star has made mention of the opening of our new pits complex. Sadly, while the area will be used tonight, it is not finished yet. The roof is still being fitted together with an awning to afford riders more protection from the elements. Of more interest is the alien craft that has alighted nearby. It is a cross between "Close Encounters" and the Beatles "Yellow submarine" (except it's grey)!
This is a thousand gallon water tank and the idea is that it will be buried under the gound at one end of the new pit area and all rainwater from the roof will be directed down there. We are also considering putting up more guttering on the main pit and directing that water towards the buried water tank. 1,000 gallons will easily give us an extra water tanker's worth of water each week, subject to the required rain.
Under increasingly angry skies we carry on watering. The surface looks wet but a cursory glance at the base shows it is still dry. We check the weather forecast again but still are told not to expect any rain. The clouds indicate otherwise but we are "stuffed" - it's a case of "damned if you do and damned it you don't." WE can't afford to delay on the next watering - if the forecast is correct then to delay a watering would mean a dustbowl; if they've made a mistake and we water and then the good Lord waters then we will be looking at a "goo" bowl.
We water.
Gerald is not well - in fact he's been taken into hospital - so, while on the weekly petrol run, I get a "Get well soon" card that all of the track staff, promotion and Swindon riders sign for the old boy. Punch is off to see Gerald on Friday and will take all of our best wishes with him.
But we are now just a couple of hours away from tapes up and the new pits are being well used with spare bikes. At least, we have no bikes parked up in the main concourse of the pits complex and manoeuvring the water cart backwards and forwards is almost easy!
By 7pm there was rain in the air and we were now worried that there was too much water on the track. The referee reported no problems with the track or the air fence and so we waited.
It was a long meeting (although no where near as long as the televised meeting between Esatbourne and Swindon broadcast on the following Monday night). Part of the delay was a medical emergency in the crowd which initially took the doctor away from trackside and then called for the use of the track ambulance.
During the halt in proceedings that the absence of both doctor and ambulance wrought the rain started to fall with a vengeance. With the Robins coasting to a comfortable victory against a very lacklustre Poole team, we were anxious to get through to heat 12 so that a result could be called.
The rain grew heavier and the future of the meeting really was in doubt. With doctor and ambulance restored to their stations the racing re-started. We took to re-grading after almost every heat. The wet stuff was now making the inside very slippery and the outside very thick. We graded backwards (from turn 4 into turn 3 and again from 2 into 1) to bring some material back and prevent too much of a build up on the exits of turns. Still some riders found the contrast between slippery inside and slimey outside too much.
We resolved the problem by grading the material high up and leaving most of it there while using the wonderwheel on the inside lines, not ripping the hard surface up but just lifting and scattering a fine layer of dirt to prevent the line becoming too slick and slippery. And it worked. By heat 15, in increasingly difficult conditions, the riders were able to attack the track with confidence.
Needless to say, we were tidying up well after the vast majority of the fans and riders had left. The banners were coated with thick, wet shale and slime and weighed a ton. The kickboards were similarly uncompromising as, for the second week running, we removed all of them for cleaning. By 11pm I think we were all just about out on our feet so the boards on the straights were left unwashed.
Wet, cold and tired, it was not an ideal end to a long day and a meeting that failed to capture my imagination. Our thoughts are with Gerald in the Great Western Hospital in Swindon - we are all hoping that the enforced rest is helping him and that the doctors will soon decide what course of treatment our old friend requires.
But back to the photograph at the top of this blog. Who is the team and which one is a particular favourite of the Blunsdon Blog?
Well the team is the Danish Superleague team Brovst and they have just beaten Vojens on Olsen's old track. The character on the left of the photograph (kneeling) and on the right of the other photograph in dark kevlars is the object of our interest.
And the answer is Brian Karger. At 42 years of age and with a very successful engine tuning business you would have thought that his racing days were over. WRONG! Back in the saddle again he beat GP star Kenneth Bjerre on his way to a paid 13 points. A lovely bloke and a great talent on a bike who never really reached the heights he should have, Brian was an immediate success when he made a comeback in the Malcolm Holloway testimonial a couple of years back. Who knows, with the walking wounded left over from the Demolition Derby at Arlington, we may need our old friend back in Robins colours - now that would be something! Good on you BK.
