ghcooke

I've signed it and urged readers of the Blunsdon Blog to read it and sign it - link on the front page of the blog. Good luck to everyone concerned. http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?p=11601

http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?attachment_id=10827

Just in, from the King’s Lynn website: King’s Lynn Speedway is delighted to announce that Australian Troy Batchelor will return to the Stars next season as they challenge for Elite League honours. Batchelor, 28, a previous Australian Champion and ELRC winner, joins Robert Lambert in the Stars top five next season and will fill one of the heat leader positions when tapes go up next March. Team manager Rob Lyon admits that having Batchelor in the team will bring more than just points. Lyon said: “Troy is, of course, no stranger to me or the club. I am delighted he will be coming back to us next season. He is an accomplished rider that will bring a lot to the team, on and off the track. Troy is a character and I believe we need that, we missed a bit of personality in the team last year especially after Rory’s injury.”

This post carries a public health warning : here they are in all their dubious glory, in full colour: http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?attachment_id=10650

Not for the faint of hearted, in next week's Blundson Blog, we have a full sized, full colour photograph of the ... "inside" of the infamous "back straight bogs"!

This is the comment on Facebook : I don't know if l can complete this post without loads of swearing but we have just arrived at the track to find that the new pits we have recently built have been demolished the building housing the change rooms and toilets have been burnt to the ground wiping out the electric supply and a tractor that had been lent to us. With their final act they have slit all the air fence panels which means the end of Northside Speedway for the foreseeable future and Sunday's meeting is off. To say we are totally pissed off is an understatement Dreadful news for the club. We, at Swindon, wish them all the best as they try to recover from this awful setback and hope that those responsible are caught and brought to justice quickly.

Yesterday's meeting against Lakeside at Blunsdon may have not been the most dramatic of race meetings but it was most certainly one, if not the most, dramatic day at Blunsdon since I’ve been coming up. The photographs below on the Blunsdon Blog (link below) show not only the latest phase of the building work behind the pits at the Abbey Stadium, they also capture the moment that the building work on the other side of the fence became work on our side of the fence. 19 months after we were first told to vacate the old away pits area at the bottom of pit lane, at last they were demolished yesterday morning in just minutes. http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?page_id=10015

The latest building / demolition work at Blunsdon yesterday is recorded in the latest blog in the Blunsdon Blog. http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?page_id=10015

The sad tale of our soggy efforts at Blunsdon yesterday is available here: http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?page_id=9000

I can understand why people who made the journey to Swindon for the match yesterday will have felt angry and frustrated that it was called off apparently quite late in the day. As a member of the track staff who had been there since 8.30am (two members of the staff had been there for most of Thursday as well getting as much done as possible), I can tell you that we tried out utmost to get the meeting on. The track was in good condition, one puddle on the main staright apart, throughout the morning. By the time that the greyhounds had finished the sky was brightening and it was warming up (slightly). The weather forecasts that we consulted were very contradictory - rain thoughout the afternoon - no rain until 5pm - no rain until 10pm. We watched the clouds and the wind direction and, by mid afternoon, as the riders began to arrive, I was sure we would be OK. Most of the riders seemed surprised by the state of the track and vans were unpacked. And then the drizzle started, a drizzle that steadily grew heavier and heavier. The track surface started to shine and after an hour's worth of rain it was clear that the meeting could not go ahead - it would have been a mudbath. I can tell you, that going around, unpinning the air fence, at 6pm in the pouring rain, just about finished it for me and the rest of the lads who'd battled all day to get the match on. Soaked to the skin, aching from a full day's work and frustrated by not a single wheel turning, it was a day that will not linger long in my memory. We could have called it off at 9am. It was raining then and the weather forecasters were saying that it would rain on until 4pm. If we had given in we could all have spent a day with our families, or even in work. You can't win! All I can say is that we tried - that's everyone involved with Swindon speedway. We tried to get a meeting on but were beaten by the weather - sorry!

The diggers were clearing the bank immediately behind the pits on Thursday. I suspect it wont be long before the old away pits complex is demolished and the access route for the site pushed through behind the pits. Quite what the impact will be during meetings and during prep time we just don't know at the moment.

Hi there. We spent all day Thursday getting the air fence out and in place. Turns 3 and 4 are difficult to locate because the pit gate has to fit perfectly, so we had to move both sets of fences back and forth to get that right. Turns 1 and 2 are much simpler, being just one run. They're all clipped together and will need no more than 2 hours work next Thursday to get right. The main straight is still very wet, but it always is at this time of the year - the frost has been drawn up through the shale but it was much better this week than last. The drains are all being pumped out each week and just keeping standing water off the track is making a real difference. Fingers crossed for a dry week next week! For more information on the track, and how wet we all got yesterday morning in the rain, check out the Blog - should have it posted by late afternoon on Sunday.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a link to a government e-petition relating to the potential for anyone who buys or rents a property close to a motorsport venue to make an official complaint about noise and nuisance despite being perfectly aware of the locality of the venue and the potential for disruption when legal searches were made prior to purchase. At the time, my re-posting was dismissed rather bruskly by another correspendent on the forum, but this reponse from the “powers that be” perhaps should be aired further. To put this in context, let us remember that there were suggestions when the Blunsdon site development was first muted that the new stadium would have to be built before any new houses could be constructed on the surrounding land and that the new stadium would be shielded from housing stock by industrial buildings. Now, however, as we enter the last year of racing at the old Abbey Stadium, we have a number of houses nearing completion within 100 yards of the edge of the stadium complex. It seems inconceivable that these residences will not be occupied before the end of the season and the noise from the Abbey will certainly fill the air on a Thursday night when the bikes roar. So could anyone moving in to a new house adjacent to the stadium, or any other stadium, have a valid right to complain about the nuisance? Perhaps the government’s response below will shed some light on the situation! “The e-petition ‘introduce mandatory noise complaint waiver for anyone who buys or rents a property close to motorsport venue’ signed by you recently reached 37,927 signatures and a response has been made to it. To read the rest of the determination go to http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?p=8721 The Italics in the response are my own. It makes for interesting reading, I think

Well done with the Crossword - it seems to have been quite well received and downloaded over 100 times. We would be delighted if you could come over to see us on a Thursday. We meet up at 8.30am and then work through until the light or the weather defeats us.

Cheers mate - much appreciated! They are all stars and give up so much time for our beloved sport.

A very Happy New Year for all the Blunsdon Blog’s readers but in particular, best wishes and thanks for 2014 to the magnificent track staff at Blunsdon: Mandy Bradford, Clive Thompson, Allan Tarrant, Ronnie Russell, Rod Ford, Roy Hicks, Adam Law, Robert Nobbs, John Nobbs, Phil Rice, Richie Leniec, Steve Gobey, Karen Pantry, Mike Hunt, Andy Reynolds, Mike Baker, Rex Woodruffe, Jamie Wiltshire, Rita Poole, Kelly Poole, Alan Page, Derek Franklin, Ernie Poole, Ray Aldrige, Mike Saunders, Mark Price, Edwin Hutchison, Steve Bradford, Nick Ball, Derek Hayward, Allan Fuller, Keith Johnson, Neil Luce, Stephen Nobbs, Trevor Pegler, Dave Whiting, Dave Cooke, Stephen Hayward and Martin Ball. Without your tireless efforts throughout the year, there would be no speedway at Blunsdon.

We've heard it all before, but with the houses springing up with remarkable speed behind the pits complex at Swindon, perhaps we are more aware of the dangers that such developments can bring to our beloved sport. But, at last, there is something that we can all do ... and it doesn't cost anything! Darron Coster has created an "e-petition" under the title "Introduce mandatory noise complaint waiver for anyone who buys or rents a property close to motorsport venue". At present there are some 26,000 signatories to this petition. If it can reach 100,000 (?) by 30th March 2015 then it must be discussed in parliament. If you want to help preserve our sport please take 5 minutes to log in and sign the petition. The link to the petition is here : Click here There are innumerate cases of people knowingly moving within close proximity of motorsport venues, only to try to have the venue's planning permission revoked or have it closed completely when they take exception to the noise. It is extremely detrimental to the UK's motorsport heritage, when all the motorsport venues start disappearing. Motorsport and the associated mechanical/engineering business is a key British export and second to none in the world of motorsports.

Check out the Video posted recently on You Tube. I'll put link on blog tomorrow but if you can't wait search You Tube for Musielak and it's the most recent posting.

Not a secret trial, but he was already well on his way to Swindon for the abandoned Bob KIlby meeting and it seemed churlish not to let him practice after he'd come all that way. The full record of his brief visit can be found in last week's edition of the Blunsdon Blog : http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?page_id=8306 I'm pretty sure the photos of him on the track are the only ones available.

Perhaps I can help here, being involved on a week to week basis at Swindon. 1). Track raking. We used to rake in between heats but you could never get the shale out evenly across the track and riders, notably Leigh Adams and the late Lee Richardson, actually asked us not to rake unless we could guarantee to be able to rake evenly right through a corner. The difference in feel between an area that had been raked and one that had not was sufficient to unsettle even the best riders in the world. 2). Using the tractor with a blade, perhaps a mesh or chain harrows. This does bring material back from the fence and spreads it evenly across the track. On a banked high speed circuit like Swindon, the forces exerted by the spinning back wheels on the track as bikes enter and then drive through corners is considerable. It would be nigh impossible to keep a top surface on the track for more than a couple of heats so, to prevent wearing on the hard base and perhaps the appearance of a "blue groove" we bring material back from the fence and then down towards the white line in mid corner and then out through the end of the corner, trying to keep the enties to the corners as smooth as possible. Re-grading, as opposed to resurfacing (which would take far too long during a meeting to be viable) is much more efficiently done with a tractor than traditional rakes. 3). Sadly, with changes to bikes (lay down engines giving lower centres of gravity and the very controversial exhaust systems) means that deep tracks prevent safe racing. The modern speedway bike is very powerful but the power curve is very small. Rico told me once that the skillful manipulation of the throttle was now a thing of the past - it was either open or shut. With this in mind, the bikes become more difficult to control and a deep track would inevitably be more incosistent than a slick one. If a modern bike hits deep shale it loses power quickly and takes some time to gather it back up again. This deacceleration allows the back wheel to grip the surface and actually accelerates the bike forward, out of control and almost certainly into the fence. We have to keep the track on the slick side to prevent disasters such as this happening. 4). If the loose material is not pulled back from the fence then there is a danger of everyone heading for the fence to get the extra grip, with little possibility of overtaking and the real danger of riders "face planting" themselves in the fence. Trying to get more than one racing line on a speedway track in these modern times is quite challenging. 5). It is difficulty in challenging and changing weather conditions, to really know how a track will respond to racing, hence the necessity to grade earlier than the usual heat 4. If a track degrades very quickly after the first heat then we need to get remedial work on it, if only to make it safe for heat two riders, who are the FTR in the Elite League without the experience to cope with a really difficult track. 6). Track staff at Swindon are employed throughout the meeting (they are all unpaid volunteers by the way), pulling material away from the kickboards on the straights, pulling it away from under the air fences so that the tractors can get at the shale with their blades, cleaning the air fences so that riders can actually see them and be able to position themselves accordingly on the track, looking out for and reporting back any problem areas to the Clerk of the Course and the track curator and maintaining the air fence to ensure that it is safe and secure throughout a meeting. They also put in hours before the meeting and are often still at the track an hour after a meeting has finished putting everything away (we, like so many other, are a shared facility and we do not have access to the track the following day to tidy up). For a fuller flavour of what goes on, try the Blunsdon Blog : http://blunsdonblog.co.uk for more.

With a little experience of covering tracks, these are my thoughts, published in the article "Sheeted and shattered" on the Blunsdon Blog. "Now, don’t get me wrong. I think that track covers are the way forward … but not these ones. If we are to be serious about track covers then we need bespoke ones to fit each track, not a set that fits all but doesn’t fit any. We need a method of getting the covers onto the track and then off that doesn’t require a mini army of volunteers dropping everything and answering the clarion call on a Sunday, or whenever. We need a system that is capable of being removed quickly and stored efficiently just before a meeting gets underway. And, we need a material that allows us to fully prepare the track before sheeting it up, confident that when the sheets are removed the track is ready for racing straight away. "Do I have the answers? No, not yet. But the questions need asking and the answers will be out there somewhere if we look hard enough. Twenty years ago air fences were just a pipe dream!" With respect, tarpaulins from Amazon are not the answer. We need to be in discussion with cricket ground groundkeepers - they have to be able to cover the grass quickly, and remove the covers just as quickly, while not damaging the grass nor drawing moisture up, as tarpaulins will do. We need a breathable substance and we need proper drainage - when you've got all that water running around on the covers it has to go somewhere and not well up under the covers because the draiange system in stadiums can't cope. Much of the problem at Swindon on Monday was not to do with the uncovered starting area, it was the constant run off of rain water from the surrounds of the track. Vojens has a system that works but then it is a "sole use" stadium and Ole has a massive team to help cover it up. The drainage is great and the water can be removed quickly and easily. The problem of track covering not going to be easy, but we can't just ignore it. Of course, we could try to end the season in early September!! http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?page_id=8220

Well, the track is now sheeted up and ready for whatever the weather can throw at it. For a more detailed view of what goes into the exercise and some of the problems that we faced, check out http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?page_id=8220

Sheeting up the track tomorrow.

Cheers guys!

The blog for the meeting is published at http://blunsdonblog.co.uk/?page_id=7328 and may help to inform discussion about the way the meeting was prepared for and why it came to an untimely end. There's also a little bit for the character on Speedway Updates who called us "idiots" for watering the track mid afternoon. No one likes being called an "idiot" and I know I speak for track staff up and down the country who tear their hair out (assuming they have any left) at some of the ill informed comments posted about tracks and track preparation by those who have never been closer to a race track than the safety fence. I'm all in favour of freedom of speech but sometimes ....