A rather strange event to kick off this week's drivel. While putting up the fence boards prior to power washing them it was observed that one panel was missing from the short run of fence from the pits entrance on the home straight. Also the upper wire from which the netting curtain is suspended was broken. Two possibilities came to mind, one vandals again or the extreme wind strength over last weekend. The board was found, in two pieces with all its fixings still attached in the car park at the other side of the corrugated iron perimeter fence. As the 8x4 plywood panels were probably too heavy for the local yobs to lift or throw over the 10ft high fence, the gales on Saturday became the main suspect. The only evidence for this was some denting to the top edge of the fence. The mystery was why only one board had been affected unless it had not been lying flat on the speedway track and the wind had got under it and flipped it over the doggy track and over the fence, breaking the cable on the way, although none of the fence supporting cables were affected - very strange.
I then had the task of fixing and re-tensioning a new length of cable between the two lamp posts, one of which you may recall we had just straightened.
A further modification was made to the sprayer (rain machine) involving Ronnie welding a length of square section tubing with a guide ring and replacing the wire which had replaced the old rope with a semi-rigid length of heavy duty hose as a new form of remote control from the towing tractor with less strain on the already repaired operating valve.
After also assisting Lindsay, our tame joiner and track staff helper to rebuild his little wooden stand which had been trashed in our earlier vandal episode and repaired but had collapsed again, we then sat back to wait for the forecast heavy rain which duly arrived about 6.50 pm right on cue. The meeting against the Newcastle Diamonds in the PL playoff semi final was badly affected but the rain relented enough to allow all 15 heats to be run ending in an aggregate draw which was resolved after some mild confusion by the new "Golden heats" 3 further races with the first team to gain a heat advantage going on to the final. Great credit must go to all the riders for completing the meeting in increasingly difficult track conditions.
Comment has to be made about the rather quixotic refereeing with some rather harsh exclusions and very strange "all four back" decisions which affected the final outcome but led to a very exciting conclusion.
The end of the Edinburgh meeting with Newcastle was thrown into confusion when the scores were level at 94 each over the two legs. With some riders packing and others actually ready to go, two riders from each side competed in a winner takes all race. Unfortunately this heat resulted in a draw so four more riders had to compete in a second "Golden Heat" race. The resulting 4 - 2 advantage to Edinburgh saw them through to face the mighty Kings Lynn for the right to race against Belle Vue in the promotion / relegation race off.
