Friday started with more vandal trouble, the side window of the referee's box being smashed by local stone throwers. This has now been replaced by perspex which should give the little darlings hours of fun. I may just have alluded to things getting better and sure enough we had a very hot day - lots of watering, wheeling and tyre packing needed. We whiled away the morning by starting the repaint of the fence boards on the first and second bends, as well as the normal set-up for the meeting, laying of covers on the dog track etc.
The meeting itself against Glasgow in the Premier Trophy was close fought with Shane Parker and guest who you might just have heard of, Travis McGowan looking invincible early on. I was becoming rather concerned about heats 13 and 15 as we only had a narrow lead thanks to a T McG 6 point TR but Michal Rajkowski rose to the occasion superbly with lightning gating and very fast racing to win both heats and seal a good if narrow win to confirm the three points and also win our group. We will now avoid Kings Lynn and meet Scunthorpe in the semis.
Before I go I must congratulate Ryan Fisher for his heat 1 time of 55.0 seconds, just 0.4 outside the track record. The clay on the track must have helped!
Ryan has been a real revelation at Swindon this year - anyone watching his performance at Ipswich on Sky will have seen just what he's been like all season. Let's hope that he gets through his GP Qualifying rounds and that he keeps himself fit; his all action style does seem to get hima acquainted with the safety fences all too often.
Also, since he's been mentioned already by Ian, congratulations to Travis McGowan who, at last, is showing the form that we all knew and believed him to be capable of. A great team member in the pits, he's now back to his best out where it really counts.
