PANIC? NOPE…….

Where to begin?

Well, there’s the weather. A weekend of sudden sharp deluges, often amid bouts of sunshine, gave a few tracks a bit of a headache – but through it all, our backstage team came up smelling of roses!

On Friday, up in Glasgow they had the biggest — league — crowd of the year in to watch Jason Crump and his Gladiators from Plymouth. It had been a warm sunny day after a marvellously sun-drenched week in the city.

Sadly, just about ten minutes before the parade, over came the big black clouds and down came the rain. Lots of it.

It was gone again just as soon as it had arrived, but the damage was done. Following the best part of an hour’s dithering apres le deluge, Jason and the lads took their kevlars off, and everyone went home. Track too wet.

Meanwhile, twenty-eight and a half miles to the east Armadale’s NDL Devils had rolled out the bikes and started their fixture with Leicester’s Cubs. This one started promptly, but as is so often the case when you’re trying to rush a meeting in, things didn’t go well.

Heat 1 had a couple of re-starts as rain started gently drifting in from the east. Heat two was again stopped twice as riders slid about on a surface fast becoming greasy. Heat 3 never got going as the rain got heavier, and then produced the cloudburst that had been feared. Declared off at 8.15.

On Sunday, down at Mildenhall our Bullets watched in dismay as the Suffolk version of Friday’s Scottish storms hit West Row at exactly 3pm – an hour before the scheduled start. The local track staff put their backs into trying to restore the surface by blading and turning over the dirt, but it was too much to achieve, and despite Kyle Bickley and Jordan Jenkins taking their bikes out to try things out, referee Babs Horley decided – after three hours’ hard work by the staff – it was a no-no.

However, as most of us are well aware, in between these events we were running the only speedway meeting in Britain on Saturday night.

Yes, we too had an immense downpour an hour before the advertised starting time. Panic? Nope, once the rain eased, the teams were consulted, referee Graham Flint (no relation) talked with curator Ian Rae and it was decided we would do – nothing!

The track was left to drain naturally for ninety minutes, no graders were applied and some impressive puddles were brushed away. Thirty minutes after the intended start, off we went – and the track was fine!

The lesson, as I saw it? Don’t panic, don’t try to blade wet muck of, just keep the public advised of the – very obvious – reason for the delay, and let Old Mother Nature do her stuff.

Full marks to referee Flint, track curator Razor, our gutsy promotion and both teams and their managements. It might not always work as well as last Saturday, but when it comes to facing down the aftermath of a deluge – less is more!

Moving on, this Saturday has another local derby at Shielfield, with the Mondorks in town. Despite some conflicting reports and advice from the respective governments, this meeting will face exactly the same Covid19 restrictions as have all our matches since the first barriers were lifted back in May – admission will only be by previously-purchased e-ticket from https://www.berwickspeedway.com/tickets/ — and a specific need to comply with the club’s published Coronavirus Code of Conduct (on page 5 of any past programme, and/or read the advice on the above ticketing link).

Hopefully, fingers, eyes and everything else crossed, some restrictions will be eased at Shielfield before the Bullets’ NDL match against Mildenhall on July 24th. It would be fair to say I can’t wait to get back to a bit of normality……

There will be a couple of “added extras” on Saturday night, with an interesting challenge mini-match at NDL following the main event against the Monarchs. This supplement to the show will have a Bullets’ quartet (Greg, Mason, Luke and Kieran) taking on a squad led by our #8 Danny, and is likely to include Joe Alcock and Josh Embleton. As well as adding to the value of your ticket (you pay for fifteen races, but get twenty-one!) this mini-meet will allow the Bullets valuable track-time before their next home NDL joust with Mildenhall in a fortnight.

Plus… Yes, there’s more!

Former Bandit (and Tiger, and Monarch) Mitchell Davey sustained some nasty whacks during his career – the worst being at Sheffield and Birmingham – and while laid up in hospital received some very welcome financial assistance from the Speedway Riders’ Benevolent Fund – the “BenFund” as it is usually known.

Now fully fit, Mitch and a couple of mates are making a sponsored cycle ride from Glasgow, raising funds for the SRBF, pedalling via Armadale to Berwick, and intend to arrive at Shielfield before (or, if they aren’t as fit as they thought, during) Saturday’s match.

They have a donations page on: www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/mitchellsnortherntour I think this is such a good idea, so supportive of the SRBF and their good work, I’ve even donated a pony – hope some readers on here can do the same. The BenFund had a rotten year for fund-raising in 2020, I hope we can show our appreciation of their good, indeed wonderful, work by backing Mitch’s biking!

Let’s go racing!.
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Disagree with Dick – as so many do? He is always be happy to hear from interesting people at dick@crystalfm.co.uk