SATURDAY night saw a fast paced, dry night of racing, with some excellent stock car racing on display throughout the night, writes our Raceway correspondent Kevin McQueen.

It was a night that had it all – flying cars, big hits, drama and a number or race suspensions.

The Ninja Karts took to the track for the first time in 2024, and it was great to see 20 plus drivers with us. Alfie Shevill almost had the perfect start to his career, as he led the way in much of the whites and yellows race, leading until the closing stages before Blair Innes caught him and moved into the lead of the race.

Innes, in his first outing in his brand new Hardie Motorsport kart, took the victory ahead of Shevill, with Sophia Allan completing the top 3.

Jaxon York was one of the quickest drivers on track in the formula, with the English driver showing good form from the blue grade. Northern Ireland’s Lewis Hazlett always seems to enjoy his visits to Lochgelly Raceway, and Saturday was no different as the youngster drove steadily throughout the night, taking away a few good results in the process.

The first main heat of the night seen the Northern Irish youngster come through from the red grade to take victory, taking advantage of an mid race stoppage for a stricken Alfie MacLeod kart.

Heat 2 would see a bit of a stop start race, with a number of race suspensions during the course of the race. Jamie Balfour found himself stuck in a dangerous spot-on track resulting in the first of the cautions on lap 5. A few laps later, another caution would be brought out after a heavy impact for Rayah Burns would see the race stopped while she was recovered from the track. These yellow flags did nothing to aid the lower graded drivers’ results, with Blair Innes finding his early race progress hampered as a result.

English driver Jaxon York would cross the line in first, but found himself penalised down into third place following a coming together with Blair Innes. Fellow English driver, Jayden Roff would inherit the race win, with Lewis Hazlett moving up into 2nd place.

The meeting final would see the karts lined up in graded order, with the top point scorers from the heats starting at the front of each grade. No sooner had the race got underway, a spinning Ryan Love kart went backwards into the wall, before a number of other karts spun around in the same area, with Alfie MacLeod catching one of them, and finding himself nearly vertical as his kart pointed skywards! A stoppage, and a complete restart was called for. Jaxon York completed an excellent night with a well deserved race win, with Hazlett crossing the line in 2nd before being penalised and docked to fourth position following an incident with Jayden Lee Jeffrey. Louie Hendry would take 2nd position as a result, with Rory Wilson moving into the top 3 ahead of Hazlett.

The 2.0 Hot Rods made their 2nd outing of the year, and it was good to see a few more cars take to the track, including the visiting Chevy Mills – who we hear may also be in attendance at our next event for the formula in early April.

Colin Wotherspoon finally managed to get his car ready for action, and it was an impressive first outing for the pilot, as he races to an convincing race win in the opening heat. David Frame has shown great consistency in the class so far, and once more, took away a few podium places for his efforts, battling for the top spot throughout the evening. A hat-trick of runners up spots will have left him happy. Scottish Champion Keith Brown would take victory in heat 2, with the meeting final seeing a coming together between Brown and Cunningham on the opening lap, drop both out of contention.

Mark Dews – who is always there or thereabouts was the one to take full advantage of this, as he raced to a well deserved race win. Frame and Wotherspoon would go on to complete the top three.

The National Hot Rods were with us for the final time ahead of their DPC European Championship on the 13th and 14th April. John Sibbald took the opportunity to get some more track time ahead of the first speed weekend of the season.

Both drivers will be hoping to have fine-tuned their setups as they look to make local track knowledge count in the big one in a couple of weeks time. A heat and final double for Alexander, and a heat win for McWilliams would see the top two share the spoils.

There was an impressive performance from Darren Scott, as he took away two third place finishes in the heats, before bettering that in the meeting final with a 2nd place finish.

The U Pull It 1300 Stock cars were out in force once more. Saturday night was one of them nights, where there was very little between much of the cars, with the pack often close.

A battle that looks to be developing in the formula is that between Mike Courts and Steven Gold – a coming together previously has saw the two lock horns on a couple of occasions on Saturday night – most notably in the meeting final where both drivers, as well as Chris Gold, found themselves rattling steel against each other. Craig Haxton took the race win in the opening heat, before Jake Wilson took yet another heat and final double which will once more see him move up the grades.

We are back in action at Lochgelly Raceway on Saturday with a fantastic five formula event, featuring Superstox, CC Rods, Ministox, Junior Productions and ProStocks.