I have had a number of requests but I have decided to carry on anyway.
Last weeks events at Armadale were overshadowed by a major electrical failure detected late on Friday afternoon, which resulted in the referees panel tripping out when anything was switched due to a short to ground. Eventually the starting gate and green lights were operating but only one of the red safety lights worked. Finally the referee, Ronnie Allan allowed the meeting to proceed with extra red flags round the track and a red flag signal from the referees box. Thankfully there were no major incidents and the meeting was able to be completed.
Earlier in the week things had gone very well with a good turn-out of track staff. Thanks to the hard work of Kenny Stewart and Ronnie Anderson the overflow car park was extended and the surface smoothed out enough to allow cars to park safely. During the car park smoothing some damage occurred to the heavy grader but Ronnie's magic welding kit saved the day.
The meeting itself against the Newcastle Diamonds was a bit one sided but included a remarkable ride from last to first by Steve Boxall who generated tremendous speed out of the bends. Also there was a memorable tussle between Trent Leverington and Thomas Jonasson with THJ passing Trent for a superb win. Generally the Diamonds were outgating us but were being overtaken by very good first and second bend racing.
Going back a few years it was a regular occurrence after heat 14 for Doc to bring out the spiker and spike up and repack the exits to bends 2 and 4, usually for Frede Schott and Peter Carr. We were all wondering why when young Aaron Summers produced a classic 2nd bend cut back to win and complete a well-earned 12+ 3 paid maximum.
Finally (thank goodness I hear you say) I visited the World's best Speedway Museum on Sunday where a few well Known faces including Ryan Fisher, George Stancl and former Monarch Brian Collins turned up. Ian Paterson's excellent collection of speedway machines, race jackets and memorabilia is a mind-boggling sight and well worth a visit.
Once again, thanks to Ian for all of his hard work, and camera work.
And best wishes to all the Monarchs fans for another great season. Here in Swindon we promise that we'll do our best to look after Ryan Fisher!
For tnhose interested I'll try and get the address / web site of the museum that Ian refers to - it sounds like a great day out.
