The Madman Writes - 1st August 2009
Hey, August already. The season is fairly moving on apace. It is quite a novelty month as there are some events that only happen once a year. On the 22nd there is the big charity night for CHAS and next week we have the Reliant Robin Scottish championship. Before all that though, a question for you. What were you doing on the 8th of August 1982? A large percentage of people reading this would not even have been born then. For old people such as myself, I was watching Grand Prix Midget racing at Cowdenbeath. Top driver of the day, Mick Bonner, won the first race before, for National Hot Rod driver, Malcolm Goodman, won the second one and the final. Basil Craske was one of the top drivers of the day at the time along with former Superstox European champion Jan Van Rengs. One week short of 27 years later, they are back. Nowadays, the Pooley family are the big names in the formula with Jonathon winning the World championship last year as well as Gordon and Daniel featuring strongly in 2009. Former F2 man Clinton Dorrell has been out racing them this year whilst Klaus Kilianski is still active on the continent. Most of the racing is done at the Spedeworth circuits and the Racewall with its uniqueness will prove to be a stern test for most of the drivers. Hopefully, they will put on a good show tonight so we won’t have to wait another 27 years before we see them again.
The Prostox have their final outing tonight before their Scottish championship in a couple of week’s time. A contingent of Scottish drivers will be heading over to Nutt’s Corner next week to contest the Irish Open in a bid to seek revenge after Irishman, Andy McLeister, took the Open Scottish from under the Scots noses at the last meeting here. Word is that he was so impressed with the Racewall, that a few more of his compatriots are promising to make the trip over here for the World cup at the end of September. The formula has proved as competitive as ever in Scotland this year with 13 different winners in the six meetings to date. Will that tally be added to tonight?
One driver who increased the number of F2 winners here this season was European F2 champion, Gordon Moodie, who along with Chris Burgoyne, provided the race of the night last week as they battled out for supremacy in the final. Chris was doing all he could to fend Gordon off but the expected hit came on the final corner and the Moodie bandwagon was back on track with his large fan club being as vocal as ever. Paul Reid took the whites and yellows race at the start of the meeting then went onto win another heat later on in the night. How long has it been since the 17 driver took two wins at the same meeting? Even my records could not find that one.
Saloon driver, Robin Copland, surprised everyone by bringing out a new car, having the campaigned the last one for longer than I can remember. It shown some promise on the track and Robin could well be up there in the next few weeks. Having dominated the heats, Gordon Alexander was a strong favourite for the final but had to give best to Scottish champion, Chris Lattka, who was right back in the groove as he proved by firing Robbie Burgoyne to take the lead. There was a moment in the first heat of the night where the old master Gordon showed young pretender Robbie how to drive. He passed him at the pit corner then drove right out to the wall. Robbie saw what he thought was an opportunity for a spin but with Gordon being so close to the wall only succeeded in bouncing off him and spinning himself round. I am sure that Robbie will have learned a lot from that and next time it will be a case of once bitten, twice shy.
The Banger drivers had a long day last week as Eyeline Media were filming at the track during the afternoon for a programme to be shown on BBC ALBA in the forthcoming weeks. Presenter, Louise MacLean, ventured out in what was very much a staged managed race but at least will get some good footage when the programme is aired. What would have been more interesting was putting her out in a real race, not that I am cynical mind you.
Finally, don’t forget the action up at Crimond tomorrow afternoon with F2’s Minis, and Hot Rods amongst the formulas racing. We are back next week with the wonderful Reliant Robins. Now sit back and let the action commence.