THE ORCi stock rod drivers were in good form at the Cowdenbeath Racewall during the season and generally the racing was close and fast without too much contact, writes Jim Turner.

Towards the end of the year the drivers tried radio contact with the control box to inform them of drivers in close order and this seemed to improve the racing.

The Scottish drivers ended up well to the fore in the honours list and with Fifers Michael Bethune (Kirkcaldy) and Jim Pitcaithly (Kirkcaldy) winning more than their fair share of the titles.

Whilst Bethune lost his World title down at Barford to Luke Oliver, he ended up with the National Points Championship as well as the European Championship. Pitcaithly took the track points title, the British and Scottish Championships and the Irish Masters, whilst Kevin Forrester won the Scottish Open Championship. Trevor Calvin won the track points title at Barford.

Generally the numbers increased slightly from last year and hopefully this trend will continue into 2017 when the European Championship heads to the Racewall.

Chris Chance and Kevin Watson were regular visitors from the north of England whilst Adam Daniels and Levi Robinson made the long trek form the south of England to race, often taking in a Barford meeting on the way home. There were a few drivers from Northern Ireland over for the British Championship.

David Kempton was in a big shunt early on in the year and didn’t reappear until late on in the season whilst David Dignan (Leven) injured a shoulder and whilst he was on the sidelines Sandy Allen (Methil) used his car picking up a win along the way.

Steven Archibald (Glenrothes), Chris Wallace (Buckhaven), Stuart Wedderburn (Leven) and Paul Prentice gave the star drivers a run for their money and along the way picked up some decent results.

Martin Rankine used the ex-Martin car and proved to be difficult to catch if he got any sort of break in the traffic with Simon Laing (Springfield) enjoying a good seasons racing, mainly from the blue grade.

Stuart McKinnon (Kincardine) built a few customer cars but lost quite a bit of racing time after his car received damage in Ireland. James Gray would get caught up in every other one's incidents but when he managed to miss them picked up a few wins along the way.

Doug McLean (Glenrothes) moved from the blue grade to red and proved to be just as competitive as when he raced from blue whilst James Matson (Glenrothes) proved to be quick but prone to get caught up in other driver’s incidents.

The top two, however, were Bethune and Pitcaithly and whilst there was a lot of close and fast racing there was also some contact which would see them penalised and as result lose some good results.

The British Championship attracted quite a few drivers from England whilst six of the top drivers headed over from Northern Ireland for the event.

World Champion Michael Bethune was hoping to add the British to the titles he already held but there were plenty of home drivers who had other ideas. The field was split in groups with each driver racing three times to determine their grid place for Sunday’s Championship race.

Heat wins went to McKinnon, Pitcaithly, Justin Washer, Jack Kennedy and Bethune.

On Sunday the cars lined up with Bethune leading early on with Pitcaithly in close order. This was the dice that most people were watching as they raced around the oval with little between them. However, Bethune was baulked as he tried to lap a back marker with Pitcaithly taking advantage of the situation to take the lead and on to become the British Champion. with Bethune leading early on but just after the half distance Pitcaithly took the lead. Once there he hung onto win from Bethune and Washer.

There was a good turn out of their Scottish Championship and the drawn grid was certainly an eye opener pairing Matson on pole with Pitcaithly alongside whilst on the row behind was Bethune, the defending champion and he had McLean alongside.

Matson went straight into the lead from Pitcaithly, Bethune and McLean in close order with Matson having to look sharp to keep the others behind. Pitcaithly found the inside line to take the lead with Matson tucking in behind but when Bethune tried to overtake both cars spun.

The race was suspended but when it restarted Pitcaithly led and whilst Bethune started from the rear of the field he was soon through into fourth place. However, Pitcaithly was making good progress on a clear track going on to win from McLean with Rankine.

On the last day of the season Kevin Forrester had a good afternoons racing leading the Open Scottish Championship from start to finish although at the chequer he had Matson right on his back bumper.

The fastest growing formula at the Racewall turned out to the 1300saloons and by the end of the season their numbers had doubled.

There were 18 1300saloon drivers at the track although only 17 were eligible for the Scottish Championship. The drawn grid paired Stu McCaig and Allan on the front row of the grid with Allan going straight into the lead as McCaig spun.

Fraser Anderson (Cowdenbeath) moved into second and closed the gap to Allan managing to take the lead after Allan was delayed when lapping a back marker. The race was suspended after Jordan Clark and Callum Farrance (Cowdenbeath) tangled. Anderson then made a good restart to the race before going on to win from Grant McGowan and a recovering Allan.

Lee Wilson (Carnock) moved from the white grade to yellow then to blue only to struggle with a mechanical problem in the Scottish. Jeff Cosans (Dunfermline) was a heat winner and recalled that it must have been over 20 years since his last win at Cowdenbeath and that was in a banger! Mind you he has missed a few seasons!

Anderson proved to be very quick and picked up numerous race wins as he moved up to the star grade and towards the end of the season picked up quite a few wins.

Allen “Captain Chaos” Bruce and his son Kevin (Perth) appeared towards the end of the season with Kevin winning the last 1300saloon race of the season.

Colin Bruce and Cameron Milne came down on a regular basis from Brechin to race whilst Mike Byers (Methil), Gary Thomson, Colin Fyffe (Dunfermline), Michael Moyes (Methil), Ross Forrest and Ryan O’Shea made their debuts. Grady Ross (Lochgelly) had a couple of runs in his 1300 but an injury saw his season come to an earlier than planned halt.

The 1300saloons had a weekend meeting up at Crimond where a lot of interest was shown whilst in 2017 the Barford track has decided that they will be running the 1300s.

And have allocated them quite a few meetings. Since they have indicated that they will be starting this formula there have been numerous enquiries for the specification of these cars.