HIS car’s performance in the recent holiday meeting has given Callum Rennie a lot of enthusiasm for the 2022 stock car season.

Callum is this week’s target for our intrepid Cowdenbeath Racewall reporter, Jim Turner.

“I am looking forward to the season starting, after the way my car ran during the delayed holiday meeting,” Prostocks Basic driver Callum told Turner.

“I won both of the heats and was heading into second place during the final when I suffered a puncture. I am glad that I didn’t touch my car over the close season – I just put fuel in it and charged the battery! I had debuted that car midway through last season and it has been really good!”

Callum, who lives in Glenrothes and is a mechanic with Arnold Clark, is determined that 2022 is going to be even better than 2021 was.

“I am keen to be one of the front runners when the new season gets underway and am looking forward to the Scottish Championship.

“I started racing in 2019 with a Fiesta that was sponsored by Arnold Clark. We had talked about building something for charity and then decided to change it into a Prostock Basic to race at the Cowdenbeath Racewall.

“I got off to a great start and picked up a win in my second race. I had a good start to my season but that came with its own penalty which elevated me from a white grade driver to the red grade. It meant that I had to start almost half a lap behind the white grade drivers, which was hard to do although I think I was faster – probably a confidence thing.

“I had a good Scottish Championship as well. I started from ninth on the grid and ran in fifth for a long time. Towards the close there were a few dices ahead of me and I managed to get through into second. I wasn‘t able to close on the winner but was delighted to finish second. I stayed as a red grade driver to the end of the season.”

Reflected the racing mechanic: “Covid decimated the 2020 season and the races took place behind closed doors. We chose not to race at these meetings and gave the car a much needed revamp.

“I raced my Prostock Basic at the practice sessions when 2021 got underway and found my car was on the pace. Not long after the season began, we had our Scottish Championship, which was to be run over two days. On the Saturday night I had a good qualifying session and at the end of the night I had secured a front row start, albeit on the outside.

“The weather was dry for the Scottish and when the race started, I dropped down into third place. The car was running well and I was confident of a top three finish.

“Then towards the end of the race there was a suspension and we all closed up behind the leader. Not long after we re-started, I got through into second but had a coming together with Nicole Russell and suffered a puncture. In the of the Allcomers raced that followed the Scottish I hit the wall and bent the chassis!

“The car had been straightened out for our next outing and it ran well over our next few meetings.

“We headed up to Crimond for the Highland Championship. Again, I ended up on the front row after the qualifying heats but this time on pole. In one of my heats, I had been the last car on the grid and ended up in second place. I led the championship race until around the two thirds distance when Joanne Hilditch drove around me.

“I struggled to re-challenge for the lead as I then had to defend from Graeme Dignan for the remainder of the race, and had to settle for the runners-up spot.”

He went on: “I dropped to the blue grade in July, did a couple of meetings with my old car, including Crimond, before bringing out my new one.

“The car ran well right away and after one meeting with it in August, moved back up to the red grade. Over the remainder of the season, I consistently finished in the top ten and that elevated me into a challenging position in the points race. At one point I had been fifty-five points adrift, but by the end of the season I was only one point short.

“As I said we were pleased with how the car ran over the closing weeks of the season and decided that over the close season that we would not make any changes to it.

“It was a case of just checking it over and this allowed us to start on building two new spare cars. My earlier car is now being used by my dad, Dave, and he has even chalked up a couple of wins with it. This has allowed us to start to get started on the new spare cars. The new cars have been stripped down and are basically ready to be rebuilt.

“However, with the holiday meeting being re-scheduled we stopped working on them to make sure that both old cars were ready for the meeting.

“The meeting, at the end of January, turned out to be a special one. I don’t think my car has ever run as well as it did! It never missed a beat throughout the meeting.

“There might not have been as many cars as usual but the racing was exciting and hard. It developed into bunched groups of cars and more often than not, we were running side by side in groups of six or eight cars.

“It was hard to make progress in these situations but in heat one Cammy Deans finally shot around my dad to lead but he then hit a problem and crashed. I benefitted from this, somehow managing to miss his stranded car to go through to win. It was a similar story in the second heat but this time I was running side by side with my dad. We must have been together for five or six laps before I managed to get ahead to pick up my second win of the night.

“The final didn’t turn out so good. I had made up a lot of ground and was about to get ahead of Aimee Winfield, when I suffered a puncture and had to retire. My dad won!”

“To say that I was over the moon with the way that my car had run was an understatement! If I can keep it in this sort of the condition then winning the Scottish and the track points must be on the cards. However, it is not going to be easy to do so but it has to be my target but then there are a few other drivers out there with the same idea.”.

Callum was generous in his praise of the assistance he gets: “I get help from my dad, Sam, Courteney, Adrian, and Gordon, and I have the boys Noah and Jayden supporting me track side.

“I also get sponsorship from Matthew Brothers, of Kirkcaldy; WRK Autos; Race2Print; Lee Smart; WM Bruce – Blacksmith; and S & B Motorsport. I really appreciate all the help they give me.”