IN any form of motor sport it is not unusual for a driver to come along and dominate their respective formula and in stock cars it is no different, writes our Cowdenbeath Racewall scribe Jim Turner.

In the BriSCA formula IIs there have been a few drivers who have been dominant and immediately the names of Bill Batten and Rob Speak spring to name whilst today it is the turn of Gordon Moodie to be the driver they all have to beat.

Gordon is a mechanic in the family garage at Buckhaven and whilst he spends most of the week repairing road cars, at night he is usually working on his stock car getting it ready for a weekend’s action.

Gordon’s home track is the Cowdenbeath Racewall but he can also been seen racing at Crimond in the north of Scotland or as far away as Taunton in the south west of England. Not only that he also takes in the occasional weekend away to Venray in Holland, a midweek meeting at Skegness and can be away from home over the Easter and bank holiday weekends.

Looking at his record Gordon has so far chalked up one World Championship win, 2 British Championships, 4 European Championships, 5 World Cup wins in Holland and 8 Scottish Championships.

Last year he won his eleventh National Points Championship, equalling the record of Rob Speak and won an amazing 69 heat wins and 43 finals out of the 72 meeting he attended scoring 29.96 points per meeting!

Over his career he has to date won 422 final wins and there are only two drivers who have won more than he has. The first target is the 462 wins of Bill Batten and the 500 wins of formula I driver, the late Stuart Smith. Both are likely to be overtaken within the next two or three seasons!

I managed to get a few words with Gordon a couple of days ago and he told me: “My target for final wins isn’t really a main focus this year. Obviously you want to win as many as possible but with the new silver roof format this year we may sacrifice performance at a few meetings to try to improve the car.”

He added: “Looking back at 2016 season we obviously sold the blue RCE car to John Sleeman and came out with a new car – which to be fair was four years in the making.

“The new car performed really good and was a credit to obviously Dave Richardson, of RCE, for building a great car but also to my dad who had spent long countless hours working on it along with the boys in my team.

“Later on in the year we debuted a new 2017 spec RCE car at Skegness and that car has great potential. The new cars getting built in the sport truly are a work of art and something for their builders to be proud of. The whole sport should be embracing the new technology and moving with the times – nothing goes backwards does it?"

To qualify for the formula II World Championship the top drivers have to race in qualifying rounds at each track and their top five scores decide their grid positions for the semi- finals. Gordon took in quite a few of these rounds and his tally saw him start his semi-final from the outside of row 1.

Gordon had brought “Lady Mavis” back into action with both the semi-finals and the final on shale, after all it was the car that he had won the World Final with at Mildenhall in 2006.

Said Gordon: “The semi-final was at King’s Lynn and the final at Mildenhall, and I could have done better performance wise.

"The World Final was so disappointing as a spectacle, in my opinion if it wasn’t possible to prepare the track due to the extreme weather then the big race should have been raced for on the Sunday.

"This attitude that oh it’s the same for everybody isn’t good enough for the drivers, the teams and more importantly the spectators who got short changed and it’s not the first time it’s happened over the years. Maybe we should have plans in place for extreme weather in the future?"

“We were a bit unlucky in a few of the big races. I burst an oil pressure pipe in the Scottish and had to retire.

The first BriSCA formula II Scottish Championship was held at Newtongrange in 1981 and no driver had been able to retain the championship until Gordon became the first driver to win back to back Championships in 2003/4. He also made history when he won it three times in a row between 2012 and 2014.

He continued: “At the European Championship at Northampton I was drawn 26th on the grid but with Chris Burgoyne drawing 3rd it was always going to be hard work. I ended up in the runners-up spot".

Gordon chalked up his 400th final win appropriately enough at the Racewall on June 4 and whilst his trip to Venray didn’t produce the result he would have wished for he won the meeting final there.

Added Gordon: “I had a good battle with Chris and Dennis Middler down at Barford in the Grand National Championship in the rain and I was quite happy at winning that one.

“We finished the season of and regained the National Points Championship for the eleventh time equalling the record of Rob Speak. Obviously I would have been nice to go for win number 12 but the format has been changed so we will have to go for the title of the National Series Champion.”

"The National Series starts at the end of September with the top 15 points scoring drivers who will be seeded into the series. The first weekend sees the drivers on shale at King’s Lynn then Mildenhall with rounds 3 and 4 at Taunton and Bristol. It’s back to shale for rounds 5 at Stoke and round 6 at Belle Vue. Round 7 is on tarmac at the Racewall with round 8 at Barford the following day. Round 9 is at Birmingham and round 10 at Northampton, whilst the final is scheduled to take place at Coventry on November 10.

“We have plenty to race for in 2017. We have been working on the IG racing car for the shale and we are all tooled up for the tarmac races.

" It’s obviously still a question mark where the World Final will be as it’s not looking great for Brandon Stadium but regardless we will try our best wherever it may be. I am also hoping to attend all the other majors and one track that is so impressive as a facility is Raceway Venray in Holland. I really think the sport should be looking to have a World Final outside of the mainland UK in the future. Venray has got to be a major contender for where it should go.

“I would like to thank all my sponsors and mechanics for all the help that they give me and to all the family, friends and our fans who help us throughout the year. It is all greatly appreciated and it makes all the hard work worthwhile.”

* The first of the practice sessions takes place on Sunday February 19 and is for new drivers to the sport only irrespective of what formula they have chosen.

Hopefully there will be one or two new faces in the minis and microf2s but then we can expect to see some drivers out in formula IIs and saloons.

The session is between 1.00pm and 3.00pm and there is free admission to the public.