Tracking James McFadden

James McFadden's race season 11/12

For season 11/12 I thought I would track the performance of young Queensland sprintcar racer James McFadden. James is no newcomer to speedway and follows his Dad as a second generation driver. At just 16 James made the move from Go-Karts making his debut in an ex Danny Lososki sprinter. In 08/09 James joined the MacDonald Racing team of Jason and Joanne MacDonald out of Bundaberg winning the Queensland state title. James was to move on and in 09/10 took over the drive in the #25 car of owner Scott Milling and in their first season clinched the prized Australian Title at Darwin’s Northline Speedway in the NT. James has had mixed success in World Series Sprintcars and this year will be running several rounds of the series in a season of 40+ races including all the major big money shows.

On the home straight

What with the tyre controversy, the series prize money issue and whether or not the series winner will be a non-contracted driver and if so, will the purse go to the highest point scoring contracted driver? These are all unresolved issues our guy James McFadden has to deal with going into this final round. It's 20 grand that James won't get if they do finish the series on top however the team aren't being phased and will just get on with the job. Quote: "I’m going out there this weekend to do whatever I can to wrap up the World Series and nothing else,” commented a confident McFadden. “At the beginning of the season we had planned to just pick and choose our race meetings, but since our form was so good we decided to continue on. It would’ve been stupid not to. The World Series rules state that if you aren’t a contracted driver, then you're ineligible for the end of season prize pool. Although the extra prize money [$20,000] would be nice for our team’s budget, we don’t do it for the money. If we did, we’d be doing it for all the wrong reasons.”
Night one of the two night final started with the all important time trials and James was to only manage a 19th place which means some hard racing and passing to get a starting place in the A main tomorrow night. Jason Johnson, James' closest rival for the series title time trialed behind James but both Brooke and Robbie had the better time trials and a bigger points haul. Heat one of the final round saw James off the outside front row with James making short work of local W.A. racer Nathan Bradley on lap one to go on to win the race. Brooke and Jason finished 6th and 8th in their heat and Robbie 5th in his so the night was coming James' way. Jason Johnson found himself in the preliminary B-main out of a lowly 15th but with a strong drive worked his way up to a 5th finish giving him a transfer position to the preliminary A-main. It was an on-fire Cameron Gessner who won the night one A-main with rivals Brooke and Robbie home in 3rd and 5th. James went backwards slipping to 10th for much of the race from a 6th place start. With a hard charge in the final 5 laps James made it back up to finish in 7th.
Well it's only WSS that know the round points as we go into night two however I do believe with only the one round of night one heats drivers were awarded double points. James should benefit from this with his heat win. Rolling on..

Back on top

Was Timmis Speedway to be the pavilion for the South Aussies to strut their stuff? Dylan Jenkin was to set quick time in time trials with a 12.264, Our lad James time trialed 10th with a 12.512. Heat #1 was flagged off with James out of five with Jason Johnson alongside. Jason wasn't hanging around gathering in James and Mitch Dumnsey on the first lap. It was a P5 for James. In the second heat James followed Tatnell through at the start and remained on his tail where the pair passed Ian Madsen on lap seven. Another P5 for James. So after the qualifying time trials and two rounds of heat races we're back qualifying again in the Bronze, Silver and Gold Shootouts. What this is about only the clown that devised it will know. It would seem that these shootouts are about setting a quick time with four cars going for it over three laps. However it works James finished on top of the Bronze. I hope he got a medal? With the accumulated points this gave James a front row start off two alongside Robbie Farr. Robbie wasn't able to maintain the pace and James made the pass for the lead on lap 10 where he stayed to take the win. That's two round wins from three races, we're stoked. This bumps James back to the top on 818 points, 28 ahead of Madsen and 36 ahead of Farr. 

Tracking James

It has been mixed results for James over the recent non-WSS races. The Prelude to the Championship on Jan 25 didn't happen as scheduled so it was straight into night one of the Title. With a heat win and an 8th place finish James only earned enough points for a 17th place start in the preliminary night one Main. It was a battle but James made his way forward to finish 11th. A rainout on the Saturday night saw the teams back late Sunday afternoon for the final round of heats and the all important mains. With a 5th and a 2nd combined with the Friday points James found himself starting out of 11th alongside Brazier. James slid past Dylan Jenkins on lap 12 for the next 9. Some good dicing with Matt Egel followed until the 40th came around seeing James with an 8th place finish.So with the title run and won by Brooke Tatnell it was time to head west for the final leg of the WSS. First up was Round 11 at Kalgoorlie International Speedway. With a 3rd best time trial it gave a good bag of points to start the night with. The first heat was a dud sparing with arch rival Jason Johnson all the way and finishing 8th (of 9) but ahead of Johnson.The second heat was a disaster only making 3 laps and recording a DNF. While there were a few surprises in the B-Main James wasn't one of them taking his start in the A-Main out of 12. It was a good run up to 6th but Steve Lines proved to be a hard nut to crack and James had to settle for 6th.
Series points after R11. James leads on 3193 from Brooke and Robbie who are closing in fast. It will be a nail biter of a finish to the series.

WSS - Grand Final

J-Mac in action in the #17 car.

Thanks to Corey Gibson for the wonderful pic.

After fourteen races around the length and breadth of Australia The World Series Sprintcar series culminates in Western Australia at the large 500 metre Perth Motorplex clay way. There are just two possible contenders to take the 2019/20 championship, our very own James McFadden and Sydney sider and now US based Kerry Madsen or as we affectionately know him.. The Madman.

Champion J-Mac's everywhere.

That's series four for our J-Mac.

And for that other J.. J.Mac. James McFadden has won the World Series Sprintcars series of season 2017/2018. This is James' fourth WSS win which goes to show that the best car with a pretty good driver is what it takes.

The James Report

Well the sceptics can no longer say James fluked his Australian title and was in the right place at the right time, this kid can do the biz. With everything in place with the Totally Workwear Racing team and Glen Beaton coming on board as Crew Chief James has the backing and the speed to win the series. With six wins from eight starts James now has a great buffer over his next four rivals some 459 points behind him. The week of speed which was Speedweek, the five World Series Sprintcars rounds down here in the southern states James won four of the five races loosing only to Gary Brazier at Murray Bridge. It's on to Archerfield for the 10g's to win show this Wednesday and the two night WSS Rnd9 this Friday and Saturday.

One to go

Round 13 of the WSS saw the team at Manjimup Speedway and James with a solid fifth place finish giving him enough of a points break on his rivals to take the championship at Bunbury last night. Didn't happen. Farrell was to take the win with Johnson, Farr and Tatnell all finishing ahead of James Mc it has set things up for a slim possibility for one of the contracted touring drivers to take the additional twenty g's trophy money. Unfortunately if James goes on to win the series championship then WSS get to pocket the dough as James isn't a series contracted driver. Tough. As we go into the final at the Perth Motorplex this coming weekend James hold the points lead on 4053 points from Johnson 3669, Tatnell 3569 and Farr 3521. Should be good. 

Eureka !!

The team trucked in to Premier Speedway Warnambool this week for round eight of the SRA Eureka Series. This is every sprintcar drivers favourite track including James' however all eyes were turned to ex A1 star Gary Brazier in one of his rare appearances. The NQ25 McFadden car rolled out for Heat #1 after topping the time trial for a pole position start. All didn't go to plan and James never completed a lap. Brazier was out in Heat #4 and swallowed up Bell, Tassie driver Kurt Luttrell and Farr on the first lap showing he was a serious contender. James had to get points to stay in it and with a good run out of ten he finished in 3rd.and bagged a few to put him in the B-main. The B was a procession with James starting from four and finishing 4th. James tagged on the back of the A-main but only made up a couple of spots to finish in 16th. It wasn't such a good night for Brazier either who actually went backwards a couple of places. Win some, loose some.

Albany WSS R12

Albany WSS R12. The night got off to a great start with James top time trialing. Heat one was a battle with Ryan Farrel for a sixth place. Another sixth in the second round of heats got James into the Gold Shootout and an out of three start in the A-Main. A mistake from pole sitter Kerry Madsen saw James take the lead in the opening lap which he held to lap 24. Jason Johnson made the pass and went on to win the round. James holds on to the series lead on 3497 points ahead of Tatnell on 3088 and JJ on 3067. The key is a good Time Trial, can James hang in there for the remaining three races?

Dubbo was a duddo

From hero to zero as the saying goes. With a time trial result putting James McFadden in twenty fifth it was looking to be a challenge to get back up the pointy end. This put James on pole for his first heat where he held on for the win ahead of Garry Brazier. With a second place in James' second heat his combined time trial and heat points were only enough for a B-main start. James was to make the cut for a ROF start in the A-main but got involved in a red light stoppage on lap one and took no further part in the race. Only picking up 157 points from the meeting drops James to forth place in the championship with 491 points, 70 behind new leader Ian Madsen.

It's roundy roundy time again

Love the race-face.

The 12/13 speedway season is in full swing again and in the big-gun sprintcar division our very own James McFadden is out there creaming it for Electric Guitars and Racing Cars. James (or J-Mac to the speedway dags) cleaned up at this years Aussie title and earned himself the coveted #1 for a second time. We're proud of you James here at EG&RC. As with most Australian speedway titles, this year also carried with it the usual controversy. Promoters of the event held this year at the SuperCheap Autos Archerfield Speedway - where the stars fly, decided to run the show over three nights instead of the usual two nighter. There were some rather grumpy race fans due to the additional entry fee and three nights of racing (24 heats) I thought was a bit unnecessary and tough on machinary for just 50 entries.
Being a bit of a race format buff, for a title race the format that was run this year did seem a little unfair in my eyes. The field was seeded into two groups. I believe this was decided by 'someones' idea of drivers being of "similar rating" (or so it said in the race rules). This simply meant that the suckers that paid for night one only got to see half the contenders, the slow guys. From there it seemed to be just a complicated mess. The couple of titles I've made it to were as simple as drawing your heats from the barrel, gather some points and run the mains. No BS, no reversing the top six, no pole shuffle, no time trials, just a straight forward race. Our James had accumulated enough points from his time trial and heats to see him straight into the A main out of 2 alongside another old EG&RC friend David Murcott (or Murcy to the speedway dags) on pole. It wasn't until lap 34 of 40 that our James made his move and took the lead.
Be sure to stay tuned for my opinion piece on the speedway state of play coming up soon.

Happy Easter (trail)

It's wind down time for the sprintcar season and time once again for the annual 'Easter Sprintcar Trail'. When I was a lad just a few years ago we would follow the racing on Easter weekend, pitching our tent in the car park and freezing our butts off. It was huge fun. These days it's a matter of logging in to Speed Hive and a little reading.

Clicky the READ MORE link for how the 2018 Easter Trail panned out.

Avalon WSS Rnd7

Preparing for battle

We made it out to Avalon Speedway 'the Place for Pace' last Friday for my annual methanol fix. We must have been among the first to arrive for the open 'Pit Party'. Some party but quite a few fans turned up for the hour (3-4) for a look-see. I did manage a few snaps but being the photographer I am I won't bore you with too many, just one of the 25 car, well some of it looking pretty quiet while being prepared for battle.

Rnd 9 goes to Shatz.

James and the team put up a great battle in the two-nighter WSS round 9 at Archerfield for the 10g's to win show. After an ace performance in the qualifiers James sat on pole alongside WoO multi-champ Donny Shatz. Donny got the jump at the green and stayed there for the entire 50 laps. Robbie Farr slipped by on lap 13 to finish in second place which has bought him back into points contention. As the teams move on to Western Australia via a one nighter in Adelaide this weekend for the first of the remaining six rounds James holds on to a healthy lead on 2752 points, 455 points ahead of Robbie next on the ladder.
Earlier in the week at the running of the Capalaba Wreckers Sprintcar Cup James finished in fourth place.

2018/2019 Victorian sprintcar champ is...

Same old, same old..

From green to chequer is was our own two time Australian champion David Murcott who recently returned from a holiday drive in the US, Murky to his friends, lead all the way after earning himself a pole start from a good run in the preliminary's. While some of the heats may have seen some good racing the A-Main certainly looked a bit of a yawn fest.

The past and the future

Okay Electric Guitars and Racing Cars fans, just taking stock and see what's been happening and where we're going. Well we have had quite nice balance of guitars and car racing blogs since I've resumed posting.
The Satisfaction clip drew a few visitors out of the woodwork. Hang on, that's me in the woodwork?? Never mind, we had a few visits and quite a bunch of direct YouTube hits for the old Lonely Boys. It's better that stuff is 'out there' than sitting in my old video collection. Stay tuned, there's plenty more.

Why Disilusioned Land?

A little damp.. yes?

So why Disillusioned Land? Basically motor sport, well particularly F1 and the Supercars have turned to absolute c%^p. We have a driver/team loosing a major event because of a drivers fitness. We have the chaos that went with it, the spinning wheel saga which received a drive through penalty for a dazed and confused driver that shouldn't of even been on the track and should have been called in laps prior.

And I'm back

Nice tan !

So that's if for holidays. Possibly a little longer than I had expected but we have had some pretty lousy weather (hot) down in this part of the world which really affects the brain when it comes to creative writing, which is what this blog is all about. So firstly I hope my readers and fans of 'Electric Guitars and Racing Cars' had a good and safe Christmas and the new year is being kind to you all.

RACING CARS:
I really need to catch up on where I left things last year in what turned out to be a pretty ho hum finish to the racing season. Blingy won the F1 championship for the nineteenth time with a race up his sleeve . I have to say he looked rather flat at the presentation in Mexico.

James creams it

James creams the competition at Round 4 or the World Series Sprintcars last night in Adelaide. That's three wins from four starts placing him on top of the points standings 28 points ahead of Ian Madsen.