Track Grading, To Much, To Little, Tractor Racing, Wrong Times & Rakers.......

[Trees]

More material means more effort ....... and more grading :-)

[ch958]

More material means more effort ....... and more grading :-)

 

and more passing and more excitement and more people and more money

 

hopefully!

[ghcooke]

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.

[Shale Searcher]

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.

Excellent Post....