Your bite sized round up of all the best news of week 27
This week we feature three fantastic track builds, a new Scaleauto white kit, the Le Mans Miniatures catalogue, July releases from Fly, Scalextric and Carrera, plus Silverstone track plans and a round-up of slot car racing and motorsport news…
Slot Cars
Le Mans Miniatures Feuilletez nos collections, the new Le Mans Miniatures 2022 e-catalog is now online
Scaleauto Honda NSX GT3 Scaleauto have announced the availability of a new mould to add to their range of 1:32 scale modern GT3 cars, the Honda NSX GT3 white kit.
Fly 2022 models – coming soon! Fly have just released a raft of new models, including several Renault 5 turbos, and a tasty Tour de France Auto Porsche Carrera RS.
Scalextric July Releases These three are just some of a gaggle of new Scalextric models arriving over the summer. The Gulf Aston Martin V8 and James Bond Esprit are delayed from 2021, but other new-for-2022 models are expected too. Take a look at our 2022 preview in the News section.
Carrera July Releases There’s also a batch of Carrera cars due in the UK this month. They include this trio – featuring cars from Le Mans, Pikes Peak and classic DRM. You can see the full 2022 lists on the forum.
Tracks & Scenery
Show us your track We’ve had three great, routed track builds on the forum recently, two from Canada, and one from Australia. Check out the progress of each build…
New Track Build Gref’s three lane routed track has had the barriers and fences installed, and next up is the power and lane changers.
New Toronto Track Fotodoug’s huge, CNC routed, three lane track has the power installed, and now needs guard rails, lane colours, and timing.
A new custom short track in Toronto Otto Pazzi Raceway is Ken’s two lane routed track build, and is aptly named, as Otto Pazzi translates as “Crazy Eights”.
Members’ Tracks For a selection of more complete layouts you could do worse than check out our Members’ Tracks section, where you’ll find a fantastic range of fabulously detailed slot tracks.
Silverstone If you watched the British GP over the weekend, then you might be tempted to check out our track plans and set up your own Silverstone track…
F1 Tracks Modern Silverstone layouts for Scalextric, Carrera, Ninco, Airfix and even a routed four lane track.
Scalextric Plans Historic and modern Silverstone track plans for Scalextric.
British Racing Greens As well as Silverstone, British Racing Greens has track plans and details for around 60 airfield circuits.
Slot Car Racing
Digital Slot Car Saturday Want to know what a Scalextric Digital club get up to on a Saturday? Worthing HO Racing held their first all-day event for two and a half years last weekend – and there’s a full report, including results, stats, images and video over on the forum.
Extreme Slotting Proxy 2022 Entries for this Rally Raid proxy have now closed. It’s time to prepare those cars for the challenges that await them in August and July. You can follow all the build-up and racing action in the Proxy Racing forum.
Summer Grand Prix Proxy The open-wheelers have arrived in the North East and will be raced at NERCS club track this week. You can keep an eye on their progress on the race thread.
SlotRacer ‘Your Club’ Forum This week in our ‘Your Club’ forum, you can find reports and news from Manx, Norwich, New South Wales, Worthing HO and Bury St Edmunds slot car clubs.
SlotRacer on Facebook
Keeping Cool in Tokyo It’s been very hot in Tokyo, so Mamoru took his Ninco Nissan 350Z to the Nissan Crossing Gallery in Ginza and relaxed with a cold orange soda and chocolate latte. You can see more great images in our SlotRacer Facebook group.
Video
Porsche 963 LMDh Launch Porsche’s new Le Mans contender was unveiled at the Goodwood Festival of Speed ten days ago. SRC have pledged to reproduce the car in 1:32 scale – and other manufacturers may well follow suit. This is the real cars first run up the Goodwood House hill climb.
Motorsport
The 2022 Mille Miglia The modern version of the Mille Miglia may not be conducted at the breakneck speeds of the past, but with gorgeous classic cars, and beautiful Italian landscapes, it is nonetheless, just as evocative and atmospheric. Virgiliu Andone travelled with this year’s historic race.
2022 Le Mans Classic Video Coverage The tenth running of the Le Mans Classic event took place over the weekend. A historic celebration of the Le Mans 24 Hours, it features over 700 cars on track and another 8,000+ on display. There’s loads of video coverage on YouTube.
British Grand Prix There was non-stop drama at Silverstone over the weekend, delivering twists and turns that both shocked and delighted the packed crowds. You can catch up with the race over on the F1 website.
Marrakesh E-Prix The FIA Formula-E grid travelled to North Africa for Round 10 of the 2021/22 championship. The race highlights and implications for the championship run-in can be found on the Formula-E website.
ERC Tet Rally Liepāja The European Rally Championship was in Latvia this week – and there was a flawless performance by a local crew to thrill the crowds. You can immerse yourself in all the coverage on the ERC website.
Farewell to Alain de Cadenet The sad news of Alain de Cadenet’s death reached us on Sunday. A successful driver, team-owner, constructor, writer and broadcaster, de Cadenet was one of the great gentleman enthusiasts of our sport. To get a measure of the man and his marvellous life, we’ve linked to Ted Gushue’s 2017 interview and photographs, published on the Petrolicious website.
If you are looking for ideas and inspiration for your track build, or if like me, you just like seeing what others have done with their layouts, then perhaps we could guide you towards our Members’ Tracks section.
You’ll find a hand picked showcase of forum members’ tracks there, with details, photos and links to the full forum threads should you wish to see more, ask a question, or make a comment.
Each one of these tracks is fantastic in it’s own right, but when you put them all together, when you see the range and diversity of ideas, and the talent of the makers, I think it makes a fantastic advert for our hobby. If you ever wanted to explain slot car racing to someone, you could do a lot worse than show them these tracks.
If you’re feeling a little adventurous, and if you have a modicum of patience, then you might be interested in our retro software packages. They’re all free, and they’re all useful in their own way.
We have a track designer, a slot car inventory, a race management sytem, and even an advanced combination of all three for Scalextric.
Scalextric Sport World
Sport World offers a 3d Scalextric track designer, a comprehensive car library and technical manual, a driver database, and a wide range of race types and features. We’ve got the files for you to recreate the original software CD.
Slot Man
SlotMan, short for Slot Car Manager, is a track designer and track timing software originally developed by Wolfgang Krech. It may be a little outdated but it still does the job, and it also allows editing of track sections to make new pieces, so it’s very flexible.
Lap Timer 2000 & Slot Cars 2000
Gregory Braun may have sadly passed away, but he’s left his legacy in the form of two useful bits of kit…
Lap Timer 2000 is a lightweight and easy to use race management system for home use, and Slot Cars 2000 is a comprehensive slot car inventory. You can check out both for free.
It costs absolutely nothing to check out these applications, and who knows, you might just find one that floats your boat. Just click below to grab your downloads.
The latest update to the Library brings us a dozen additions to our burgeoning collection of Scalextric catalogues.
Covering the periods 1970-78, and 1982-84, the new scans complete our collection for every year from 1960 to 1984, and there are many more to come.
Our new contributor, Richard Winter should really be given some sort of honarary title such as the “Holder of the National Collection of Scalextric Publications”. His collection is quite amazing, and he’s kindly scanning them for us, and filling in the gaps in our Scalextric library. Many thanks Richard.