Cowdenbeath Racewall: This year to be 'golden' for GMP

At the end of August they staged the Saloon World Final and then three weeks later it was the Stock Rod version.

Just recently it was announced that GMP will be hosting the 61st running of the Formula II World Championship over September 5, 6, and 7 in 2025.

The first World Final that headed to Scotland was run at Cowdenbeath in 1983, the Spedeworth days, when the second ever running of the Saloon World Final ended with Gordon Brown leading Neil Petrie home.

The cheer as Brown took the chequer flag had to be heard to be believed and it is something that has to be experienced.

Nowhere else do you get such an electric atmosphere than you do at the Racewall.

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This year the Saloon drivers headed to the Racewall for the 2024 World Final with the grid determined by a series of events that give the drivers World Ranking points. A fire closed the Mildenhall track which stopped the running of the British Championship, resulting in Stuart Shevill Jnr starting from pole position.

Shevill Jnr had an amazing year rising from mid-teens in the World Rankings to lead and hence to claim pole position.

On the day the atmosphere was something special and the drivers made good use of the practice sessions.

The race was something else with Stuart Shevill Jnr leading a much-stopped race until the very last bend when Archie Brown’s lunge sent Shevill Jnr’s car bouncing off the wall as he slipped through to win.

Reverting back to 2008 – the year that Archie’s dad, Shane won, he had to fend off the attentions of Luke Grief early on. Once he had done so he eased away from the field to record a comfortable win.

Formula II competitor Gordon Moodie. (Image: Jim Turner) By a strange coincidence both drivers went on to win the Raymond Gunn Tribute race the following day. Archie went one better when he later won the rearranged British Championship at his home track of Taunton.

Just three weeks after the Saloon extravaganza, it was time for the Stock Rod World Final.

The weather was good and there were numerous drivers at the track from Northern Ireland and the south west of England.

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An early stoppage bunched up the field with Cammy Doak taking the lead on the restart and whilst the defending champion Samuel Montgomery chased when his car started to misfire Doak went on to record an easy win.

BriSCA Formula II didn’t come to Scotland until 1981, when Gordon McDougall opened a track at Newtongrange, just south of Edinburgh. Two years later the Formula II World Final was run in 1983 at the now defunct Newtongrange Oval and the last time was in 2014 at the Racewall when George MacMillan Jnr won.

What a weekend of racing that turned out to be!

A temporary stand was erected at the pit bend which held 1500 spectators. On the day the weather was bright and sunny, the stadium was packed and the atmosphere highly charged.

There were drivers from all over the mainland with a sprinkling of drivers from the Netherlands, Belgium and Northern Ireland making it a multinational grid.

The weather was warm on all three days with the last chance semi-final being run on the Friday night.

The front row of John Broatch and Chris Burgoyne got no further than the first bend as Sam Wagner won from Robbie Dawson.

The day of the World Final was something to behold. The pits were full, the atmosphere electric and the fans flocked to the grid walk to meet the drivers.

In the afternoon the foreign drivers had time trials to determine their grid positions.

The race was something else with George MacMillan Jnr going through to win, but it had looked at one time that Barry Goldin was going to be the winner. When a car just ahead of Goldin blew his engine, he crashed out on the oil slick whilst others spun.

This left MacMillan Jnr in the lead and he reeled off the remaining laps to win from Gordon Moodie.

To get onto a World Final grid the drivers have to participate in a series of World Championship qualifying rounds where your best five scores will get the top 56 points scoring drivers into two semi-finals, next year being run at Taunton.

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The odd points scoring drivers are in semi-final one and the evens in the other. The top ten finishers are seeded onto the World Final grid where there are designated places for the overseas drivers.

The top six in the last chance semi-final will fill the last three rows of the grid.

The Scottish drivers have featured prominently in the World Finals since BriSCA first came to Scotland in 1981. Their first World Final in Scotland was held in 1984, at Newtongrange, where Malcolm Locke went on to win. It didn't take long for the Scottish drivers to make their mark on the proceedings with Gordon McDougall, Jimmy Moodie, Errol Johnson and Keith Stanford stamping their mark on the proceedings.

Moodie was twice runner-up, first at Bristol in 1985 and then the following year at Hartlepool. Up to this point most of the winners had hailed from the South West of England.

Then along came Jimmy Wallace who won the title in 1988, at Taunton, and then retained his title at Newton Abbot the following season.

When Newtongrange closed its doors at the end of 1988, GMP moved across the water to Cowdenbeath. Instead of the usual post and wire fence a concrete wall was built around the track - hence the Racewall was born.

Allister King won the inaugural running of the World Final when it was run at the Racewall, in 1990, before we entered the Rob Speak era. Speak won the title in '91 and in '92 lost it to Ian King at Crewe the following year, before then winning the title an unpresented six times on the row, including when it was held at the Racewall in 1997. Speak then retired to head the Formula 1s with Daz Kitson winning the title in 2000 and ’01 but it was a Scottish youngster, Chris Burgoyne, who won the title at the Racewall in 2002.

In between World Finals at the Racewall, Gordon Moodie won his first title at Mildenhall in 2006 and then John Fortune at Skegness in 2010. Since then, Moodie has recorded a double success, first at Bristol in 2018 and then retained his title at Buxton the following year. Covid put paid to racing in 2020 but in 2021 it was Burgoyne who dominated at Skegness, some nineteen years after his first win.

Moodie then regained the title at Nutts Corner in 2023 - the first time it had been staged outwith the mainland, whilst this year Luke Wrench was crowned World Champion at Taunton.

Next year will be the sixth time that the Formula II World Final has been staged in Scotland and the fifth at the Racewall.

At this stage Rob Speak is the most successful World Champion with eight wins to his credit, followed by Gordon Moodie and the late Bill Batten who have each won the title four times.

The promotion hopes to get the temporary stand erected once more on the pit bend and are actively searching for sponsors for all the events over the weekend.

We can expect to see most of the top drivers in the sport at the track, either in the World Final or in the support races, and in a meeting of this magnitude the atmosphere will be electric.

Even at this early stage the fans are talking about the World Final and who are the favourites. Can Gordon Moodie or Chris Burgoyne add to their World Final win totals or will Luke Wrench retain?

Could there be first wins for the likes of Charlie Guinchard, Tom Bennett or Graham and Gavin Fegan, or will be it be left in the hands of Nigel Stegmeijer or Jan Bekkers?

At this stage it is all conjecture but once the semi-finals have been run then it is a very different story.