Ford makes big-money investment on track (From Bournemouth Echo)

Ford makes big-money investment on track

7:00am Thursday 21st January 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

PIRATES chief Matt Ford has confirmed he splashed out a five-figure sum to “refresh” the speedway track surface at Poole Stadium.

Minor alterations have been made to the Elite League club’s bowl which the Wimborne Road supremo says will make racing even more exciting in future.

The length of Poole’s circuit remains at 299.1 metres, so it continues to meet FIM (Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme) approval so world class meetings can still be staged there.

Ford, who politely declined to disclose the exact amount he’d spent on improvements, said: “The track alterations really needed doing and took one week to complete.

“As much as you keep putting down products on top of other products, the product never binds together.

“Every 10 years or so tracks need a full service, just like a football pitch needs to be re-seeded on a regular basis.

“It hadn’t been done since 1996. It had done 13 seasons.

“So we’ve basically stripped it back down to the surface and started again.

“I can’t tell you how many tonnes of shale and product were moved, but it was in the hundreds of tonnes.

“Some was moved from one part of the track to another to make it better and a lot of new product was put on it as well.

“It’ll have the rest of the winter to settle down and hopefully it’ll respond well when the new season starts in March.

“Track curator John Hector brought in people to assist in getting it into decent shape and we’re happy with what we’ve got.

“You can never tell until you see riders going round it how it has responded to the changes, but we’ll quickly adjust any problems if they arise.

“The shape is exactly the same as it was, but it will ride differently to before because we have moved so much of the shale around.

“Racing has always been great at Poole and I don’t see any reason why that shouldn’t be the case again next season.”