By Daniel Powell
Although it wasn’t the desired end result to his Australian Sprintcar Championship defence; James McFadden was content with his efforts that netted him a sixth place finish in the feature race.
After having spent the past two race meetings, the Grand Annual Classic and the Prelude to the Championship, in the lead up to the Australian Championship at Warrnambool’s Premier Speedway, McFadden was quietly confident of being right up there with the best of the best in order to retain his Australia # 1 crown, but it simply wasn’t to be.
Tough heat races on both nights of the Australian Championship hampered McFadden in the end despite the fact that he’d moved forward in every one of his four heat races and also came from 16th in the field to finish ninth in the preliminary feature race on the Friday night.
For the Australian Championship feature race on the Saturday night McFadden started from position nine in the field and one thing that worked against him was the fact that it took 37 laps for a stoppage to occur. In the three lap sprint to the chequered flag he was able to move from eighth up to sixth, but by then he’d simply ran out of laps and sixth place was where he his Australian Championship defence would end.
“I needed to start closer towards the front of the field in the feature race and that all came down to not getting those lucky breaks in my earlier heat races, as the competition is just so tough that you can’t afford to give anyone a break,” the Queensland based 21-year-old expressed. “We’ve held Australia # 1 for the past eight months and it’s been a great experience and we’ll back next year at Speedway City [Adelaide, SA] to try and get it back on our tail tank. Congratulations must go out to Brooke Tatnell and the Krikke Motorsport team on winning back Australia # 1.”
Speaking of Speedway City, this Saturday night (February 5) McFadden is set to return to the venue to contest the Australian Nationals. After that event the next one is the resumption of the World Series Sprintcar Championship for the Western Australian swing. Currently McFadden sits sixth in the overall point standings behind current leader David Murcott.
In the 2010/11 season McFadden would like to thank his car owner Scott Milling, his parents Dave (crew chief) and Tania, along with his valuable 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