The swallows have returned to Armadale Stadium and the local cats are running about with baby rabbits in their jaws signifying that the rain is about to get warmer. Fortunately Wednesday 29th was dry allowing us to erect and power wash the fence boards. Friday 1st was a different story - the rain started about 11 a.m. and was fairly heavy until about 2 p.m. Fortunately we had sufficient dry weather to dry out the track and to enable us to cover the dog track early. The meeting against the Bears of Redcar was fairly uneventful but was enlivened by the Redcar supporters who had made the trip North. Gary Havelock put up his usual hard riding performance but was outshone by the home rider's usual second bend swoops.
The following Wednesday was not too bad.weatherwise Fence cleaning went well and we even took the opportunity to fit kart tyres on to three fence posts which had been noted by last week's referee. Friday started wet and we must have cleared the drains about six times following successive heavy showers. We also took the opportunity to modify the spiked grader by altering the angle of the centre transverse bar by some highly skilled drilling, angle-grinding and welding.
The showers dried up by about 3 p.m. but the track was too wet to put tractors on so adding some dry material had to be delayed until after 5 p.m. after which rain threatened to totally undo all our work but happily it was only a very brief and light shower.
I then had a brief chat with Eric Boocock who was hobbling along having broken his knee cap in two places falling off his trials bike at Fort William. We commented on Eric's Sky appearance and all agreed that the Tigers had been robbed by some quixotic refereeing which Eric had protested in his usual blunt manner.
The KO Cup match against the Sheffield Tigers was completed although some riders, notably Ricky Ashworth were clearly not happy with the conditions but others notably the Fish and Mr Tully just gave their normal full-out efforts. Others to stand out included Joel Parsons and Josh Auty who was the only visitor to beat Andrew Tully.
Once again, thanks to Ian and all the lads up at Armadale. They'll no doubt be glad that we're not using Ryan Fisher for the match against Eastbourne at Blunsdon on Thursday - he seemed just a little battered and bruised after the encounter at Arlington on Sky last Monday in what will surely become known as the "Demolition Derby" match.
