Punch and I have been on a short sabbatical this week - at Lakeside. With Gerald being off work, having just been released from hospital after a serious heart operation and "not supposed to do any work" Punch and I decided to offer our services (his significant and mine menial) to the Lakeside team for the meeting against Coventry televised by Sky.

An early start to the day. Up at 4.45am and a drive into the heart of Swindon to meet up with Punch and his delightful wife, Pat.

With a boot full of overalls and kit we set off for Lakeside. It's a relatively straightforward journey from Swindon to Lakeside but it's a long way and the vast proportion of the journey is via the M4 and the M25.

We weren't that far into the journey when my mobile rang. Quelle surprise - Gerald. He's got his long suffering wife Maureen to drive him down to Lakeside so that he can watch the meeting, except they're already on the road as well - you just can't stop the man.

Everything goes swimmingly until we leave the M25. Sat Nav says we're just 5 minutes away. I have great faith in modern technology - I suspect Punch has less! "Turn left and then go up to the roundabout, right and then straight on and right at the new roundabout. Nearly there. Now turn left and we'll be there." Great planning, great technology, great confidence ... great confusion. There's no left turning! We're back on the same bit of dual carriageway but now we're heading back to the M25. We find a friendly bus driver at the Lakeside shopping centre. "It's easy from here." He gives me instructions more akin to correcting the world financial crisis - with lefts and rights flooding in my mind we try to find the circuit ... and find the same two roundabouts we found earlier, and still no left hand turn. And now we're heading towards London. A quick turn around and a stop at a roadside cafe. "Oh, it's easy to find ... turn right, then left, then right and go on over the next set of roundabouts and keep on going until you get to the last roundabout and turn right and you're there." I ask how I will know it's the last roundabout. "Well, cos there ain't no other ones!" Unconvinced, I return to the car and we try to follow the instructions ... and end up at the same pair of roundabouts. We try a different exit at a subsequent roundabout and find ourselves in a Sainsbury's car park.

Another conversation, another set of instructions and lo and behold, we find the stadium. As we drive down the road to the car park and the actual entry to the stadium I spy a hole in a thick hedge ... and there are our two round abouts! Four times we had been within touching distance of the track ... and four times we wandered off.

First up we attached a similar blade to the one we have at Blunsdon to one of the larger tractors. Once you leave the compound you follow a tarmac road past the staff room, past the entrance to the terraces and then down a steep hill. At the bottom turn a sharp left and then drive up past the pits and up onto the "banger racing" circuit that surrounds the speedway track. The temporary fences that separate banger and speedway tracks, are being put in place as we trundle past. We leave the blade up against the armco barriers on turn 4 and then head back to the compound for the ripper.

In amongst the nettles and brambles Punch suddenly stops and points. The object that has caught his attention is a harrow.

Looks like so much scrap iron to me but he explains that it's a bigger version of the drag harrow that we recently acquired at Blunsdon. "Magic for creating some dirt and evening out a surface." He waxes lyrical; I nod sagaciously and pretend that I know what he's talking about, but his sheer enthusiasm is infectious.

Near to the ripper is a blue wonder wheel. From a cursory inspection it looks like the version that Colin Meredith devised.

We reverse the Case tractor back and begin to hook up the strangest ripper I've seen. In addition to a series of bars with vertical bolts hanging down there is a wheel like device at the back.

It's heavy and awkward to fit. There's obviously a more efficient way of managing the tractor's hydraulics and the connectors on the ripper - the trouble is we haven't found it yet.

I follow Punch down in a small tractor that perhaps has seen better days and might be more appropriately sited in a museum. As we plunge down the hill towards the pits I pray to every deity I can think of that the brakes will work and I wont become a permanent exhibit in the wall!

And then it starts to rain. I've been listening intently to the BBC forecasts since we left Wiltshire and there's not supposed to be a shower in the Lakeside area, at least not before mid afternoon. Ken has been on to the local weather stations who are all of the opinion that there will be rain but not in Essex, in Kent.

In the event, we had 5 showers of rain in the day, two of them sufficiently heavy to send us scurrying back to the staff room for shelter. The combination of a cold and very blustery wind and the showers makes getting the track ready really problematical.

While Punch and Ken start working on the track I help out Kev, Gerald's son, who has driven up from Tonbridge Wells in Kent, to put up the air fence. Because there is banger racing every weekend at the Lakeside circuit the whole safety fence has to be taken in at the end of each meeting and put back up again in readiness for a speedway match. A thick piece of concrete separates the speedway track, which is about 6 inches higher, from the tarmac of the banger circuit.

The air fence is significantly different from the one which we have at Blunsdon. It is made of a much softer and more pliable material and is considerably easier to negotiate into place. The fact that it sits on a flat surface helps to hold it up straight and a series of metal clips holds it up against the wooden posts and the intervening straps. The air flows between bags through a single tube that zips together. I find out quite soon that these zips, while minimising air loss, are very difficult to zip up - shale blocks them up and the flexing of the bags pulls the zips apart. I think that a combination of the air bag design, material and clips from Lakeside together with the pipes that we use for air flow at Blunsdon might make for the ideal air bag.

Large wooden posts are inserted into holes in this concrete and then restraining straps are linked through the posts and then pulled into tension with tensioners at the start and end of each corner.

With all of the bags zipped together and then air pumps (one for each end) running, the air fence soon stands upright and the task of clipping it into place securely is very straightforward.

Out on track Punch has been using the rather eccentric tractor to tyre pack down the starts. Like me, he's not impressed with the gearbox nor the clutch but it seems to be doing a good job. The ripper has been a great success - the surface is nicely broken up and very even. Trouble is we have to get it packed down because another of those mythical rain falls is about to begin. We scurry for cover, cursing the weather and weather forecasters!

This combination of high wind and rain showers is making every job difficult and the presence of Sky vehicles, cranes and cameras has a funny way of focusing the mind!

While we pack down and begin the process of getting material ready for top dressing Gerald and his wife arrive. Trying to get him to sit down and take it easy is not easy - he just can't relax. Ken assures him that all is going well but Punch and I know that we wont be able to keep him off the track for long.

While we work away on the track the air fence is cleaned and then banners are put up. Lakeside is an odd track - long straights and very tight bends. The number of banners used on the entire racetrack is equivalent to our one sweep on turns 1 and 2 at Blunsdon. yet, while the corners are very sharp (turns 1 and 2 a make the track almost egg shaped) the track is very wide - in some places wider than Blunsdon.

We take a close look at the camber of the corners. The track runs up from the white line about 75% of the width of the track but then the last couple of metres to the air fence is flat or even downhill. Clearly a rider going out too far on the track as it is will simply run out of grip and make a close inspection of a fence panel. Elsewhere there are one or two dips here and there that will need attention but we feel confident that we can get them filled when we apply a couple of loads of shale after lunch.

Punch uses a mesh to spread the top dressing just before another of those mythical showers rolls in.

We've had some shale in a trailer down by the start gate and I draw the short straw to take it back to where the rest of the shale is stored. Just to make my day I draw another short straw and get to take it with the rather eccentric tractor. The hill up from the pits has the machine shaking and straining but we get up there. In fact, I'm becoming a fan of the little tractor until I reach the shale store and try to reverse the trailer in. Whilst it steers well going forward, it is a nightmare to reverse it. As I start my third attempt a split pin jumps out and the trailer bar falls off one side, embedding itself into the loose surface. I am stuck - the World's Worst Tractor Driver has done it again. I call Punch and together we lever the bar back on and then park it at the 6th attempt.

Time for tea.

And now we have a combination of bright sunshine and a keen wind. A close look at the track shows that ... it is drying out too quickly. Time for water. We collect the water cart and then park it outside the tea room. The pump is brought out and then attached with ... cable ties - what would we do without the humble cable tie?

But the best it yet to come. An ingenious set of strings, pulleys and bits of metal enable the driver to operate the pump. It's right out of the Heath Robinson inventor's guide book.

Punch offers me a lift back to the track but I don't fancy that hill. It's steep and we are using a new tractor but all that water pushing you down the hill ... I decide to walk explaining that the exercise will do me good.

Some parts of the track are drying out much quicker than others and we need to watch the skies for more of those mystery showers. I am dispatched to go and get the wonder wheel, using the old tractor. The view from the seat down the hill is disturbing but we make it down there all right.

And who do we meet out by the armco but our friend Steve Gobey. Steve is the provider of all things musical and a lot of things electrical at Swindon and also provides the music at Lakeside. He does a double take before registering that it's Punch and me.

Out on the track Punch waters and the wind blows.

But, as can be seen from the two views taken from the air fence on turn 4, the track looks really good. It will never be a grippy track but it is even and we feel confident that if the weather holds it will provide for some good racing.

The old tractor, and its much younger and more powerful friends, is parked down on the banger track on turn 4. Entrance to the track for the tractors is via a gate just beyond turn 4. The fact that we can park up so close to the track and not have to negotiate our way around riders and everyone else who appears in the pits is a major advantage.

The first real signs of activity become apparent in the pits over behind turn 2.

Up on turn 1 the Sky studio is up and ready for Messrs Pearson and Tatum to do "their stuff".

The first few riders make their way out to inspect the track. Gerald chats with them all while Punch and I rip the start. We've attached the ripper to the small tractor. The wheel behind the ripper breaks up the material beautifully as we attempt to even out the starts. Everything works well going forward but once again the reversing is bizarre - the thing seems to steer itself.

Once Gerald is happy with the starts we turn our attention to ripping an area about three metres wide and a metre in all the way round from the exit to turn 4 to half way round turn 3. While my attention is caught by something else going on, Gerald, who is supposed to be simply watching, decides that the track is too hard and the ripper needs more ballast. "I'm only sitting down," he explains. We soon see through that and he is dispatched to the centre green. I stand on the ripper while Punch drives back and forth. We repeat the exercise on turn 1 and 2 before I am sent off to get the large tractor to pack it down before yet another burst of rainfall hits.

Sky's Chris Louis joins the Lakeside lads out on the track for their track inspection. Gerald's wife, Maureen, and Punch's wife, Pat, have been to the local Tesco's and prepared us a wonderful cold chicken and salad supper.

After the refreshments it's back down to the track. And there I meet up with another old friend of the Blog, referee Christina Turnbull. Christina is in charge tonight's and it's good to have a chat with her - one of the really nice people in speedway.

It gets cold quite quickly and we are a little concerned that too much moisture is being pulled to the surface. There are some comments from the home riders that it's a bit too wet but the racing is great. In one heat we count no less than 7 separate overtaking moves - great stuff.

Everyone we meet is delightful. One of the real characters is Webby who comes from Rye House. He and Gerald pose for the Blog. Endlessly enthusiastic, as is Graham Arnold, who works by the start line, he keeps us enetertained all evening.

We can't sit back though. Ken is kept in touch with the pits via a "walkie talkie" and we have to make sure that the tractors are out at the exact times with the right equipment on the back - Sky schedules are very tight. When Lee Richardson slides off into the turn 3 air fence and punctures an air bag it's all hands to the deck as we struggle to unzip one set of bags and zip up another.

But the racing is good and the result goes right down to the last heat where an Adam Shields engine failure costs Lakeside the third point. More importantly, Gerald is happy and has been kept relatively quiet.

But now the work starts again. With an admirable crew of regulars I help take down all the air fence panels, the static panels on the straights and everything else. These are all loaded onto a series of trailers and then driven away. Punch puts the track to bed and leaves it looking beautiful.

It's getting on to 11pm when we get away, hindered somewhat by a power cut that plunges Gerald's caravan and adjoining buildings into darkness.

It's after 1am on Tuesday morning when we get back to Swindon and I fall into bed at 2am. From 4.45am on Monday to 2am on Tuesday - I'm shattered. I've just seen the Sky coverage and on the whole the comments were favourable - a bit of wingeing here and there but you just can't avoid that.

I'll finish this, the first "Lakeside Log" by thanking everyone at Lakeside for their kindness and good humour - Brilliant!!

Apology: Being somewhat decrepid and still feeling decidedly drowsy after Monday I misread my notes and in the original version of this I referred to Ken as Tim. Sorry!