The 20-year-old says Allansford’s Premier Speedway is his most-loved track.

“It is the best track in Australia by far,” he said.

“I love this place and it’s one of my favourites towns.”

And it’s not hard to see why. As a 16-year-old he set the fastest time in qualifying for a World Series Sprintcars Championship event in his first laps around the circuit.

Fast forward four years and he produced the performance of his career to finish fourth in last weekend’s The Standard Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic and backed that up with a scorching lap in qualifying last night for the 12th WSS round.

For much of the session, his time of 10.997 was the quickest, only to be eclipsed late by American Terry McCarl who posted 10.952.

McFadden was delighted with his Classic effort.

“It was a strong weekend for us, the guys we were racing against were full-time professional drivers,” he said.

McFadden found his way into sprintcars via his father Dave, who raced for more than a decade, regularly making the arduous trip south for the Classic.

As a boy, McFadden was in the Allansford pits as a spectator, then he started crewing, alongside his father, for another Northern Territory hotshot Danny Reidy.

He jumped into the driver’s seat when he was legally allowed and is quickly making a name for himself.

McFadden snr revealed his son had been offered a chance to race in the United States this winter in the 360 cubic inch ranks but nothing had been signed.

James played a straight bat to questions about the possibility of a US deal.

“There could be (a deal), we’ll just see what happens.”

He preferred to focus on finishing strongly in the WSS championship and contesting major races to come this season, finishing with the national title in Alice Springs in May.

McFadden said speedway was the driving sport where he wanted to remain.

“Sprintcar racing is my favourite by far,” he said.

“Bitumen racing is a bit boring, even though the money is bigger there, but I wanted to stay in sprintcar racing.”