It's human nature to fear change so maybe that's why I've never been to a stock-car meeting at the Cowdenbeath Racewall despite having been a motorsport fan for over 10 years. I'm a circuit-racing man born and bred so the idea of full contact racing not only being allowed but actively encouraged is indeed a difficult concept for me to get my head around. So it was with interest that myself and Catriona made a midweek pilgrimage to Knockhill to sample a world we knew very little about (so with that in mind, any stock car fans out there please excuse the rampant ignorance in my following report!) The Stock Car Summer Series has been running for a couple of years now and utilises the tri-oval section of the track including the escape road, down to Taylor's Hairpin, back up the straight and turn off down the escape road again.

It was a very pleasant summer's evening when we arrived - warm and sunny with a bit of a breeze. The trackside was mobbed with a large number of people out enjoying the weather and the coming racing. Almost everyone at the circuit seemed to have a grease-laden morsel of some description in their hands be it a burger or chips with cheese. A wander around the paddock revealed a startling array of (mostly quite battered) machinery - a quick look at the BRISCA F2 cars shows that they are indeed very strange looking machines - tiny little single man machines with a massive wing on the roof that is almost bigger than the car itself!

At this point the call went out for the Ministocks to take to the track for their first race of the day. These machines are pretty much exactly what it says on the tin - stock minis which have been absolutely gutted of all needless weight. Very nippy and very manouverable looking things, it wasn't uncommon to see them heading through the hairpin and out of the escape road section of the oval 4 wide. The cars were running on the edge of adhesion and nowhere was this more obvious than when one of them suffered a loud and violent blown right rear tyre (above) right in front of us as the tortured rubber was coaxed through the tight right hand turn out of the escape road. For such small cars, the grid size was huge - at least 29 of them roaring around at any one time and it was next to impossible to follow the race order.

Speaking of having trouble following the race order - next up were the BRISCA F2 single seat machines. The sheer speed in a straight line of these crazy cars is quite incredible and watching them powerslide through the hairpin (going the wrong way!) was amazing. The leaders would start lapping the rear end of the field almost immediately due to the staggered group starting procedure and the battling groups all down the order were exciting to watch as you could see the whole field at all times no matter where you stood to watch. The last couple of races of the day were run with these cars and the sparks they kicked up in the fading light were pretty spectacular.

The Stock-Hatches were the next step up from Ministocks it would seem and almost the entire field was made up with Vauxhall Novas with one or two Fiestas and Corsas with a Citroen Saxo thrown in for good measure. These were very fraught races due to the close nature of the cars but with the increased body size over the ministocks there was contact aplenty - usually resulting in a car (or three) off the track and kicking up extreme amounts of dust. Given that the weather had been scorching for a week or two up to this point there was plenty of Knockhill dust to be spread around and the strong breeze was more than happy to coat anyone downwind of the incident area in it. The bumping and panel bashing eventually led to a Nova ending up on it's roof in the hairpin gravel. Another incident of note was the Nova which speared left into the tyre wall which sent spectators (including myself!) scattering in all directions given the force with which it headbutted the tyre wall!

The Hot Rods were an interesting concept - Fiestas, Clios, Peugeots etc completely gutted of all weighty extras with very sporty engines and bodykits, wings etc. These were very nippy machines are were impressive to watch hugging the corners at speed. The grid was quite sparse unfortunately so there wasn't a huge amount of actual racing to speak of but the cars themselves made an interesting sight - they sounded pretty good too!

The most entertaining action of the day came from the Saloons. These extremely battered full size 4-door stock cars seemed to have seen plenty of action given their incredibly 4th hand appearance. The fact that they seemed to have massive iron cattle grids welded to the front and rear of them in order that they could hit each other all the more just added to the fun. The races were frequently halted to rescue stranded cars and the tyre wall on the inside of the escape road took some extreme punishment in the form of being demolished by a couple of cars one lap and then having one of those same cars once again pile into them straight after the restart to rebuild the wall at such an angle that not only was the wall destroyed again but the offending car rolled quite violently (left). Says it all about these cars that not only was it driven away from the scene of mayhem but it was out in the next race.

Almost all of the races were impossible to follow but I quickly learned that isn't really the point. This kind of racing is just meant to be a blast of pure adrenaline and noise as the cars work their way around the circuit in one big pack. It's entertainment in a very basic form and I had a great time. So much so in fact that at the time of writing we plan to be heading out to the Cowdenbeath Racewall this coming Saturday to see the cars in their natural habitat!