By Daniel Powell
A number of hard fought results over the past few weekends have moved James McFadden up to fourth place in the current overall point standings of the World Series Sprintcar (WSS) Championship.
The standout result during this period for the current Australian Champion was without a doubt his performance during the ninth and most recent round at Warrnambool’s Premier Speedway on New Year’s Day. After qualifying in the middle of the field and failing to finish his opening heat race and then finished fifth in the second heat race of the night, McFadden was forced to qualify for the feature race via the C-main. He comfortably won the C-main and he then claimed the final transfer spot in the B-main with a sixth place finish. In the feature race, where he had started from dead last in the field, McFadden was spectacularly able to charge his way forward, which saw him pass a total of 14 cars in the process, to finish sixth in what was one of the best drives of the season from anyone.
Throughout the rest of the Christmas / New Year period on the road McFadden was able to qualify and finish in each of the feature race and that consequently contributed to his rise in the WSS Championship point standings. Boxing Day Night kicked off the busy ‘Speedweek Series’ period at Speedway City and he recorded a seventh place finish after he had started from position 13 in the field, followed by a 10th place finish at Murray Bridge Speedway from the back of the grid, a 13th place finish at Mt. Gambier’s Borderline Speedway and then a 10th place finish at Geelong’s Avalon Raceway.
As a result of those results McFadden has now moved up to fourth overall in the WSS Championship standings with a total of 1996 points.
After the WSS Championship leg of the WSS Championship last weekend was cancelled due to the wet weather, McFadden and his team will contest the inaugural Mildura Sprintcar Scorcher at Mildura’s Timmis Speedway this Wednesday night (January 12) and then the WSS Championship will continue with the 11th and 12th rounds in South Australia at Murray Bridge Speedway this Friday night (January 14) and then Speedway City this Saturday night (January 15).
In the 2010/11 season McFadden would like to thank his car owner Scott Milling, his parents Dave (crew chief) and Tania, along with sponsors Totally Workwear, Western Diamond Drillers, KRE Race Engines, OMP, Racer Industries and Cool Chassis for all their wonderful support.
To find out more about James McFadden visit his official website: www.jamesmcfadden.com.au