If I ever mention the words "warm" or "sunny" in connection with Armadale .... After a very good Press Day the inevitable happened - a night of heavy rain on Thursday which flooded the place again. A morning of drizzle and a heavy shower about 5 p.m. did not help although the track did dry out a little on Friday afternoon, so much so that Doc had the hoses and bowser out briefly.
We had a very good turn out of track staff on Friday - the usual suspects, Doc, Ronnie, myself, Alex, and two not so new recruits in Jim and Tommy. Jim is our start marshall, now unencumbered by gainful employment while Tommy used to be on the staff at Powderhall and is also now retired. We were joined by Graeme (day off work) and Gordon Campbell, and Lindsay and Jim after their daily grind.
Our first task was to paint the soggy first aid room and resurrect the flourescent lighting, achieved after a bit of electrical ingenuity and salvaged light fittings, tubes, starters etc.
In their infinite wisdom the BSPA or SCB have decided to have another 10 metre line as well as the 4 metre one, so these had to be painted on to a mixture of wet grass and mud. We also had the rivetting spectacle of our Machine Examiner, Mose having to measure all the environmental mats!
The meeting eventually started on a very slick and shiny track on a very cold and windy evening - too cold for me. Racing was quite close and eventful - lots of first bend spills. Congratulations to Aaron Summers for his 12 point maximum on his promotion from reserve.
Michal Rajkowski also rode very well, including leading Shane Parker for two laps. Michal looked very steady apart from a couple of hairy moments which he has a remarkable ability to recover from.
The other main talking point of the meeting was our new overflow (literally) car park. After long negotiation we obtained the use of a field to the East of the stadium to ease parking problems on neighbouring streets, which was fine when checked on Wednesday but unhappily Thursday's rain was its undoing, turning it into a quagmire causing two vans to get stuck and block off most of the approach roads with large tail backs.
Not a great start but things can only get better.
All the best
Ian.
It's been a difficult start to the season at Edinburgh; in addition to the wet weather there is the predatory presence of a major supermarket chain eyeing up the place. We all send out best wishes to Ian and the crew.
