By Daniel Powell,Photo by The Carrells
The road to recovery for James McFadden took a turn for the better over the weekend at Mac’s Speedway in North Queensland, after he came up fine from the two night Mackay Sprintcar Challenge event.
For nearly 12 months the former Australian Champion has been battling a shoulder injury, which was suffered in a crash at last season’s Mackay Challenge, to the point where he was forced to cut short his 2010/11 season in order to seek medical assistance to fix the problem.
In what was his first appearance aboard the Scott Milling owned NQ # 25 Totally Workwear supported Cool since February of this year, McFadden came away pleased with his results over the two nights of the Mackay Challenge that saw him finish the opening night in third place and the final night in second place on the podium, both results were achieved from row three feature race starts. More importantly, the most pleasing aspect of the weekend was that his shoulder pulled up all right after two nights of tough racing.
“The Mackay Challenge was going to be the big test for my shoulder and I’m pleased that it pulled up ok,” McFadden commented. “It was a bit sore after the opening night, but on the second night it was a lot better. After the opening night my team did a bit of adjusting with my HANS device and that made a massive difference.”
After the pleasing outcome to the Mackay Challenge weekend, McFadden is now going to work harder on building up the strength in his shoulder.
“I think that in order for it [the shoulder] to fully recover, I need to build up the strength,” McFadden enthused. “In order to achieve that I’m going to focus more on working harder in the gym and I’m confident that I will be fully fit, sooner rather than later.”
McFadden is next going to be in action on Saturday night, September 17 at Toowoomba’s Charlton Raceway for the running of last season’s Queensland Title. This event, where McFadden is a former title holder, was cancelled late last season due to bad weather and was rescheduled for the beginning of this season.
McFadden would like to thank his car owner Scott Milling, parents Dave (crew chief) and Tania, along with his valued sponsors Totally Workwear, Western Diamond Drillers, KRE Race Engines, OMP, Racer Industries and Cool Chassis for all their ongoing support.
To find out more about James McFadden visit his official website: www.jamesmcfadden.com.au