Brooklands

Scenes from the 2009 slot festival at Brooklands
Official 2009 Brooklands poster

Brooklands Museum Slot Racing Festival

16th August 2009

After the NSCC's two major slot car shows of 2005/6, no more of a similar size were held for the next two years. But Pendle Slot Racing had a trade stall at the NSCC events and had been very impressed by them so Sean's mind started to turn to organising an event himself. In 2009 he put together a one day event at Brooklands Motor Museum in Surrey. Like the NSCC shows it would include trade stands, lots of tracks to race on plus the the superb historic racing surroundings of the museum itself.

This show included:

Drag Strip
A drag strip under Concorde
Drag Racing strip under Concorde
Track
A six lane routed wooden slot track
Brooklands era scratch built slot race in the historic chequered flag room
Concours
Red Morgan three wheeled slot carRed Morgan three wheeled slot car
Phil Smith's concours winning Morgan 3 wheeler
Hillclimb
Scalextric track laid up the hill at Brooklands
Scalextric hillclimb up the actual Brooklands one
Tracks
BLST digital slot trackNinco off road slot track
Lots of other race tracks and attractions
Swapmeet
Swapmeet stands in the old pit buildingsOne of the swapmeet stands with tables covered in slot cars
The NSCC organised a large swapmeet with the trade stands in the original pit buildings while Pendle's and Scalextric looked after the other attractions.

Totally unexpected though was a phone call from a TV company who were producing a series called Toy Stories. It was going to be presented by BBC Top Gear’s James May with each episode focusing on different toys with a set challenge. They wanted to re-create the original Brooklands circuit on the same day as the Slot Car Festival. In the process of doing this, it would also be the longest ever Scalextric track in the world.

Brooklands 2009

Inevitably the event was a huge success with enormous crowds and Weybridge almost gridlocked with the queue of cars waiting to get in, largely down to the lure of the TV Cameras and James May.