IT wasn’t the best of night’s weather wise at the Cowdenbeath Racewall with a continuous drizzle making life difficult for the drivers and there were quite a few enforced spins and shunts.

However, there was some interesting racing in the 2 litre and 1300cc saloons whilst the Rookie Banger drivers blitzed each other in the opening heat and as a result there were quite a few drivers who failed to reappear!

The formula II drivers were over in Northern Ireland for a three day event – the Irish Open on Friday night which was won by Christopher Kincaid and over Saturday and Sunday the British Championship which ended up in the hands of Chris Burgoyne.

There were quite a few Scottish drivers in attendance including Burgoyne who started the final from the outside of the front row. Although he ran second for a spell once Burgoyne hit the front his only troubles were making sure of making good restarts after race suspensions which he did before becoming the 2016 British Champion.

Down at Skegness Stuart Shevill Jnr (Motherwell) picked up his first ever formula I win when he came out on top in heat 3 and then won heat 6. In the British Championship Frankie Wainman Jnr won with Shevill Jnr eighth..

The 2 Litre National saloon drivers topped the billing at the Racewall with Patrick Calderwood making his debut along with Kevin Letford although the latter raced them in the mid 2000’s. Kyle Irvine (Glenrothes), Ross Watters (Leven) and Derek Duff (Cupar) were the local drivers.

Their first race of the night was another round in the white/yellow challenge series with Jamie Connacher leading the field away.

Both Calderwood and K. Letford had previously been driving front wheel drive cars with the switch to rear wheel drive a bit problematic. Barry Glen was through into the lead early on and after shaking off the attentions of Ross Graham went through to win, Graham held onto second place with Glen Heeps in third place.

The opening heat saw Graham go through to win from Glen with Watters in third spot, Duff fifth and Irvine down in seventh place. Luke Grief, who had spun out of the opening heat, then went on to win from James Letford and Duff with Watters in seventh and Irvine in tenth place.

When the final started Connacher led from J. Letford although within a couple of laps they had swapped places. Kyle Irvine had spun with Watters and Graham running at the tail of the field. Willie Mitchell caught and passed Connacher and began to catch Letford but Grief was making up places seemingly finding grip where others couldn’t. Just after half distance Mitchell moved into the lead but Grief was now third and still closing quickly.

Grief moved ahead of Letford and then onto the back bumper of Mitchell and as they came across back markers Grief got alongside but then Mitchell got blocked off by a back marker and lost ground. This allowed Grief to ease away before picking up his second win of the night from Mitchell and Letford with Duff a close fourth, but neither Watters nor Irvine were classified.

Although there were one or two of the regular 1300cc saloon drivers missing there were debuts from Michael Byers and Gary Thomson whilst Cameron Milne was again using the Colin Bruce car as his is nearing completion. Local drivers in action were Lee Wilson (Comrie), Michael Byers (Methil) and Arron Hastie (Ceres)

The opening heat saw Grant McGowan just pip long time leader Hastie to the finish line with Brian Allan in third with Wilson sixth and Byers in ninth place. McGowan, who had just been downgraded from red to blue went on to win heat two and was promptly upgraded to red! Graham Swan ended up in second place with Derek Campbell third with Byers sixth but both Hastie then Wilson had to retire.

When the final started Campbell and Cameron Milne swapped places a couple of times before being joined at the front of the field by Wilson and Hastie.

When Milne got a bit sideways Wilson moved into second spot. Swan was catching those ahead and during the mid point joined in the dice for the lead and managed to make short work to take the lead. Once there he eased away to win with Campbell just holding off Wilson to claim the runners up spot with Byers in seventh place.

There weren’t too many prostox around with local drivers Ryan Harrow (Leslie). Ricky White (Thornton) and Callum McIvor (Inverkeithing) in action.

Harrow won the opening heat, picking up his first ever win, from White and John Mason. Heat two saw White win from Mason and Harrow, In the final Harrow led until the closing stages before White forced his way through to win with Mason again third.

The Rookie banger drivers were in good form with plenty of shunts and spins with local drivers James Bratchie (Cowdenbeath), Billy Wilson (Kirkcaldy), Scott Lindsell (Cowdenbeath).

The opening heat turned into quite a destructive affair although Sean McConnachie romped away from the others for an easy win making capital as the others managed to destroy each other. Wilson got caught up in a shunt on the main straight whilst Bratchie and Lindsell both had to retire. In heat two McConnachie went from last to first during the opening lap to win from Scott Lindsell and Matt Branch.

McConnachie made it a clean sweep when he won the final although he nearly didn’t make it after hitting Branch’s car on the last bend and stopping. Luckily he was able to restart to win from Lindsell.

No sooner had they crossed the finish line than they went straight into their destruction derby with the cars immediately crashing into each other. McConnachie and Dale Ashall had big hits with McConnachie’s car ending up against one of the marker tyres. Sean Tierney was sent crashing out before Branch and Dale Ashall were the remaining cars with the latter’s car surviving a big hit from Branch. However Branch’s car expired as a result but Ashall’s car was able to continue and was then adjudged to be the winner.

Next week the BriSCA formula II drivers return to the scene and are accompanied by the 2 litre National saloons, The ORCi stock rods, the ministox and miceof2s. The stock rods are racing for the Gordon Ross memorial trophy with additional prize money. The meeting starts at 6.00pm as usual although the microf2s will start at 5.45pm