Digest 48

Published by woodcote on Nov 28, 2021

A slightly sombre Digest this week, but there’s still plenty of slot car and motorsport news and features to cheer up a cold November morning…

And let’s be seeing your Williams slot cars on the forum here.

Slot Car Shows

• UK Winter Slot Car Market Facebook groups are awash with prized purchases from yesterday’s swapmeet at Gaydon. It was a well-attended event and traders seem to have gone home as happy as the punters. Congratulations to the organisers for bringing slot car enthusiasts together at the home of the UK Slot Car Festival.

Controllers

• Vintage Controller Show & Tell Vintage slot cars certainly grab our attention, but the fabulous array of controllers that appeared during the 1960s and early 70s is often overlooked. Nico started a Vintage Controller thread on the forum and now there’s quite a collection.

• UK Club Controller Wiring Tutorial If you need help wiring up your controller for use at a UK club – or you fancy building a UK club-style controller hook-up – then there’s a useful tutorial over on the forum. That 2 Amp three-pin plug is an anachronism, but you’ll find them at almost all UK slot car clubs that run analogue cars.

Publications

• Scalextric: The Ultimate Guide Volume 6 These 330 pages cover official Scalextric competitions – including national and World Championships – plus events such as Goodwood, Brooklands and the Guinness Book of Records. Many events have special commemorative cars produced – and these are all in this volume, along with some cars that were never released. There are also cars with liveries never seen before and pre-production tests such as ‘glow in the dark’ paint test and other paint decoration trials. The ‘Code 3’ cars created by UK Slot Car Festival, SLN and others are all listed here too.

Scalextric Club

• Scalextric Club 2022 Now is a good time to join the Scalextric Club. The 2022 Club Car – Ari Vatanen’s ‘Black Beauty’ Escort RS1800 – is ready to be bundled with next year’s catalogue and posted out in January. Don’t miss out. You can find out more on the forum.

Slot Cars

• SRC VW Porsche 916/4 To celebrate their 10th anniversary, SRC are producing a limited edition VW Porsche 916/4 triple pack. The three Porsches represent the works cars which finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd at the 1970 Marathon de la Route, an 86 hour race at the full, 17 mile long Nürburgring track.

• Fly 25th Anniversary Series Lancia 037 It’s another 25th Anniversary car from Fly – and another cracking Lancia 037. This one is a model of the car that won the 1984 Tour de Corse – the final victory for the 037. You can read all about the rally, the car and the Fly model in the SlotRacer News section.

• Micro Scalextric Two new Micro Scalextric sets – including the brand new lap counter – are expected just in time for Christmas. The 1:64 scale Micro system was completely re-designed by Scalextric three years ago and is now a perfect match for the very youngest racers and those who prefer the smaller scale.

Tracks & Scenery

• Le Mans Tribute Track Jackyickx53 has shared some photos of his wonderfully atmospheric and well detailed, Scalextric Le Mans tribute track. Well worth a look.

• Chevrolet Flat Bed If you fancy a static Chevrolet flat bed truck to put on your track, and don’t mind a bit of modelling, then MiniArt have just the thing. It’s 1/35 scale, but who’s going to notice the difference?

Tips & Tuning

• Avant Slot LMP Tuning BARacer is getting to grips with his Audi R10, with a little help from the good folk of the froum. Check out his progress.

Slot Car Racing

• “Triple Crown” Slot Car Proxy Series 2022 Graham has big plans for proxy racing next year, the intention being to run three proxy series under the “Triple Crown” umbrella, an American Trophy Road Race Championship, a single seater/open wheels Championship, and a Le Mans Cars Championship

• GT3 Proxy Shoot-out All eyes were on YouTube Sunday evening for the 2022 GT3 Slot Car Proxy Shoot-out in Canada. Twenty-four cars were battling for the final thirteen places in next year’s prestigious international proxy event. You can watch a full re-run of the nail-biting three hours now.

Automotive

• Aston Martin DBS The 1967 Aston Martin 2+2 GT was the first to carry the DBS moniker. Somewhat overlooked, this was an in-house styled model that captures the trends of the early 70s – muscular, precise and extremely sharp. Photojournalist Virgiliu Andone takes a restored 1972 DBS down to the Thames for a breathtakingly beautiful photo-shoot. You can enjoy the images and read the essay on the Petrolicious website.

Motorsport

• Frank Williams No-one predicted the heady heights that Frank Williams would reach when he founded his racing team in 1966. Thanks to enormous grit and determination – plus the engineering genius of Patrick Head – Williams’ team would go on to win nine F1 constructors’ championships between 1980 and 1997. A near fatal road accident left Williams with life-changing injuries, yet he faced these with the same bloody-mindedness his friends, family and colleagues were so familiar with. Frank Williams is a true British motorsport legend – and an excellent life-in-pictures article pays tribute to him on the Guardian website.

• World Rally Cross Championship The FIA World RX championship showdown took place at a snowy Nürburgring – with two rounds over the weekend. Reigning champion Johan Kristoffersson clawed back a big deficit to go into Sunday’s race just four points behind leader Timmy Hansen. You can catch up with the news and bite-size videos on the official website.

• FIA World Touring Car Cup The 2021 WTCR season ended with a weekend in a wet and windy Sochi. Championship titles and a long-awaited race win rounded off the year with huge celebrations. You can find all the news and watch re-runs of the two races on the official website.

• Roger Albert Clark Rally The Roger Albert Clark Rally is the ‘must do’ historic rally, recreating the iconic RAC Rallies of yesteryear on some very familiar stages. Storm Arwen played havoc with Day 2 of the event, but there are plenty of fabulous cars and great footage to see over on the official Facebook page.

• The Great American Off-Road Race Backdrop to Hunter S Thompson’s cult-classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the Mint 400 is one of the most prestigious events on the off-road racing calendar. Centred on Sin City and covering 400 miles of Nevada desert, festivities start on Wednesday – with the big race next Sunday. You can follow all the build-up and action on the Mint 400 YouTube channel.