I am delighted to be able to bring you the second of our reports on work at Edinburgh, thanks entirely to Ian Hawkins and the team at Armadale. I've had some great feedback from readers of the Blog about our attempts to broaden our aspect beyond Swindon, and great mention has been made of the pleasure derived in seeing the preparation that goes into a Premier League track several hundred miles away from Swindon.

In his second report Ian reports on the efforts to tidy up after a meeting against Workington and then battling with the elements to get a meeting on against their "nearest and dearest", Glasgow!

Back on Wednesday 3rd April for a mammoth clean-up session following the Workington meeting in which Monarchs were very impressive, given the strength of the Comets. 

Masses of goo to clean off the fence boards and to dig out from the kickboards as the circuit had to be bladed during the meeting to remove most of the mud. Fortunately track staff had been in on Saturday to scrape most of the shale off the boards but it was one of the longest power washing sessions in some time.  A massive effort from all concerned.

Friday was a day of contrasts - steady rain in the morning prevented much from happening other than clearing muddy water and trying to unclog some of the main drains. 

We ended up digging a small trench to locate an underground pipe but this was totally choked to at least a metre from the inlet. The track was not too badly affected though and when the weather improved greatly after lunch track preparation was completed, to the extent that we had to get the water cart out on the track later on in the afternoon as it was drying out very quickly.

The meeting was held on a dry track with some very good racing marred only by an unfortunate heat 1 first bend accident to Ross Brady who withdrew from the meeting with a suspected collar-bone injury. The highlight was heat 15 when William Lawson overtook a very impressive Shane Parker on the last bend.