When Tim Press came down and seen the jumps he was...How do I say it...Shitting his sen that the track was looking like an eighth track. I told him that its about time the 5th scale came into the norties and stop running around on flat tracks with one jump on.(Sorry to all you 5th scale track owners, but you buy these 5th scale off roaders not scubbies or Mitsobushi rally cars) They need to jump. I told Tim to bring his car tomorrow and have a go around the track and then if it doesn't work out I'll alter the jumps there and then.
He turned up on the Sunday morning with a look of anticipation, and he said that he doesn't want to brake his car. I said "Don't worry you won't, just take it easy for a few laps and then we will just do it 1 jump at a time."
We had no worries at all, as the first thing he did was to start going around to Mallet's Mountain and flew over it. The rest was easy then he came to the tripple, but with the ground being loose dirt he had not enought grip to do the tripple. He nearly did it though.
So that was a big thumbs up from the 5th scale. So if the 5th can get around then 8th and 10th should have no problems.
The Monday I had to get rid of some soil!! only a little bit about 8 tonnes! So I had a look around the track to see what I could do as I didn't want anyone barrowing all that lot up the hill. Mallet's Mountain kept catching my eye. Thats it, as Tim was landing his 5th scale way after the down ramp. So Mallet's Double was born.
From this
To this
Then it was Time for the astro company to come and lay the astro for us.....Problem...They had 2 massive jobs on when we wanted them to come.
Andy came back to us with a solution. He will send us the plant that we needed and a driver, good as I was nearly in rehab, with missing me digger. Monday morning and Rob the Driver was at NDOR with Pete Murry and Tim Press looking at where they was going to start. The plant turned up just as we got our start of the day cuppa. I've got a digger with a cab on it, "I hope its got a radio or its going back" I was glad the it had a cab on as with the other digger we had hired, it was open and I cannot tell you how wet I had got on that. "Bloody hell its got a heater!!" lol
So we had got Rob on the telly porter with Pete and Tim, Ade, Vinny Tracey and myself with the digger, stop forgot someone......Denzel's back lol, my buddy his fit now ;-)
Rob was putting the astro on the track and I was rolling it out with the bucket while the rest was steading the rolls for when I had to go over the jumps with them. Everyday the track was looking better and better, but then we had hit a problem and I was up all night trying to think what to do to solve it. The problem being that I had designed a section that it was the driver choice to either go over a lot of small rumbles or over 3 sets of doubles that where side by side on one section. which ever way you went you would end up in the corner at the same time, so there was no advantage given to any lane. I desided that I would get rid of the ripples and just have 6 jumps to hop over. Problem...No soil. So I deside to graide 1/2 inch of soil of of the infield in front of the jumps. Cool it worked just enough and the infield was smooth, so 2 jobs done. While I was doing this Vinny, Ade, Denz, Pete and Rob was putting astro on the Burm, what a jub they had trying to push the astro rolls over the edge. I left Chris Jones wacking the 6 jumps why I went off to roll out the rhythm section and the to follow the track around. We had good fun with trying to roll a 3/4ton roll up the jumps, but we didn't get to the big one yet. Mallets Double was a tough one, as everytime I tried to push it up it would pull all the roll up instead of rolling out. I had to put the front blade on the astro to hold it in place then push the roll out as the was no way I could get on top of the jumps to pull the rolls out.