Following his recent 16th birthday, Mark Cooper Jnr (former Ministox star 108) took to the Plough Lane tarmac at Wimbledon Stadium yesterday evening for only his second meeting in a senior formula - Mark has moved up to the Lightning Rods.

Having played safe in his first meeting at Birmingham and started from the back of the grid, Cooper was confident enough to start from the front of the grid at Wimbledon - with many of the sports biggest names chasing him down.

Mark performed well in Heat One to keep the #22 Sierra out in front and drove a faultless race to take a flag to flag win.

A similar winning performance in Heat Two meant that Mark was automatically upgraded to Yellow for the meeting final - meaning that the more experienced drivers were much closer to his back bumper than in the previous races. 730 Mike Daniels got closest to Mark in the early stages but was unlucky to spin himself out on the pit bend; meaning that Cooper now enjoyed a reasonable gap between himself and Ben Furness 339 in second.

On a night that saw the young man racing against much more experienced drivers , Mark more than held his own and is clearly one to watch for the future. Mark's fantastic hat-trick is yet another example of the Ministox proving to be an excellent breeding ground for the drivers of the future.

Thanks to Chris Berry for the photos.