Racers and spectators were greeted by blustery weather at East Fortune on Saturday morning for the first meeting of the new season hosted by the Melville Club.

The weekend’s racing took place in quite challenging conditions, with a windy Saturday and a lengthy spell of rain on Sunday morning and the track temperature was cold, so racers weren’t going to produce lap records, but with everyone suffering the same wet conditions, there was some close racing.

Unfortunately, because of lost time due to several stoppages for fallers and fuel spills, some of the Club Championship races were abandoned and, thanks to the marshals and helpers, racing was resumed on Sunday afternoon when the weather had picked up and thankfully the remainder of the racing ran without a hitch.

Gifford’s talented teenager Lewis Rollo has just moved up to the 600 Superstock class and qualified in pole position, notching up two wins and a fourth place.

Haddington’s Paul McClung was runner-up to Rollo in one race and fourth in another race whilst getting used to a new bike. Rollo leads the Championship, with McClung in second place.

Dominant performances came all weekend from Torquil Paterson and his son Lewis. Paterson Snr is a previous Scottish Superbike Champion and several times winner of the Steve Hislop Memorial Trophy and now races in the Lightweights class, while his son is in his second year of racing in the Formula 125 class.

Both Patersons took pole positions in their respective classes during Saturday’s qualifying session and young Lewis won all three of his races, while his dad won two and picked up a second place.

Paterson Snr leads both the Scottish Lightweights and the Melville Championships, while his son leads the Melville Club Formula 125 Championship.

There was a welcome return to Scottish racing for Tim Hastings, who has spent several years racing in the British Superbike series.

Hastings started off well by winning his first race on Saturday in the Scottish Superbike class, narrowly beating pole-sitter Andrew Tasker, the current Superbike champion.

Tasker won the next race and finished second to John Dean in the third Superbike race and is sitting at the top of the Scottish Superbike Championship league table.

The sidecar team of Stephen Kershaw and Rob Wilson qualified pole and took all three race wins and lead the championship from Tony Baker and Fiona Baker Milligan.

The next meeting at East Fortune will be held over the weekend of May 23-24.