Ninjas serve up a feast of quality at Lochgelly Raceway

The Ninja Karts were racing in their annual Autism Awareness event, with a few additional prizes up for grabs throughout the evening courtesy of a few sponsors.

Riley Stagg was a welcome visitor north of the border. The youngsters have served up some brilliant racing this season and Saturday was no exception with little between much of the drivers.

It was pleasing to see some of the lower graded drivers produce some great performances across the meeting too – Alix Martin, Alfie MacLeod, Ryan Love, and Layton Cairns all drove really well and all deserved to come away with points.

Ryan Love has been one of the most improved drivers this season – most notably in the second half of the season with the youngster taking a further race win in the whites and yellows race on Saturday, before coming away with a couple of top 5s in the remaining races.

Rory Wilson secured the track championship for the 2024 season, having opened up a gap big enough for it now to be mathematically impossible for him to be caught, having took victory in the first heat.

Jayden Jeffrey raced through for a second place finish, whilst Layton Cairns completed the top three.

Heat two saw a few early spins and the field spreading out – however, a race caution would see things closed up mid-race. This provided an opportunity for Jayden Jeffrey to calmly race to victory with Christopher Lattka, Rory Wilson, and Alfie Shevill completing the top four.

The youngsters have served up some brilliant racing this season. (Image: Kevin McQueen)

The meeting final was the Autism Awareness race. Rory Wilson raced to victory in this despite an early spin, whilst Alfie Shevill raced excellently to finish in second ahead of Christopher Lattka and Ryan Love.

The 2.0 Hot Rods battled it out for their 2024 Scottish Championship, being defended by Keith Brown. Two reverse grid heats would see the points tallied to give the grid for the meeting final.

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Charlie Hardie drew pole position in the opening heat and drove flawlessly to victory, whilst Keith Brown found himself beached on the kerb three quarters of the way through the race which resulted in a DNF. Frankie Cunningham claimed second ahead of Allan Gibson.

Heat two saw the grid reversed, and this time, Keith Brown raced to an excellent race win. Behind Keith though, Frankie Cunningham and Charlie Hardie had an excellent battle with Cunningham looking to keep Hardie at bay.

The pair raced side-by-side and bumper-to-bumper for long periods, before Hardie took to the outside line whilst approaching back markers, and with Cunningham closing in on the back marker on the inside, he was unable to defend as Hardie moved round and into second position.

Brown took the win ahead of Hardie and Cunningham.

Hardie qualified pole position with Cunningham alongside, and Brown and Gibson just behind, and got a good start and moved into the lead with Cunningham dropping in just behind, with Brown and Gibson following suit. Things would go wrong into turn three though, as Cunningham made a move on Hardie with the two cars coming together and Hardie spinning out as a result – this also opened up the door for Brown to move through, and Gibson to then challenge Cunningham into turn one on the following lap – this time, it was Cunningham that found himself spin around as Brown raced clear.

Gibson would go on to finish second whilst Cunningham completed the top three.

The Superstox welcomed Steven Gough into the formula as he made his debut having never raced any other formula previously. Gough fared well on the night starting from the back and completing the evening without any damage.

Dylan Anderson continued to show improvement in the formula having now made a couple of appearances.

Anderson found himself leading the way at stages during the night and came away with a few more points on the board for his efforts. The star graded drivers continued to dominate proceedings, however, with Aaron Riddell and Dean Johnston finishing first and second in each of the three races, with Adam Low and Kenny McKenzie also scoring well.

Benjamine Erskine would be the only driver on the night to finish in front of any of these four drivers, as he raced to a credible third place finish in the meeting final.

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The National Hot Rods had another night of close fast racing, with the World Champion Robert McDonald joining us. Ethan Doull had a nightmare start to the night, as he drew up with a major leak during pre-meeting practice.

Credit to the team though, they persevered and got the car out on track for the opening race of the night. Marc Spence was also a welcome returnee to the formula having missed the first few rounds of the campaign. Spence had a few issues though, with a retirement in heat one and failing to make heat two or the meeting final.

McDonald took a heat and final double, and almost had a hat-trick, though he was penalised for contact in heat two, which saw Keith Chesher take his first race win since returning to the formula.

The Stock Rods were the final formula in attendance – providing some entertaining racing throughout the night…

Race wins went the way of Robbie Armit in the opening heat, with James Halkett taking the win in heat two, before David Crichton was eventually awarded the race win in the meeting final.

We are back this Saturday and Sunday for two days of action-packed racing. The National Micro Bangers race for their World Cup with 60+ bangers set to compete. The action gets underway at 4.30pm on Saturday and 12pm on Sunday.