[woodcote]

What has any of that got to do with the price of potatoes?

Yes, people play all those things. Model railroading has always been a more popular hobby than slot cars (although Aurora didn't do bad in the US during the early-to-mid 60s). It's also a fact of life that if you want something badly, you have to at least dip your toe in the water - although jumping in the deep end can work very well too.

Personally, I think there is less of a gap between a total beginner and the 'bottom rung' of the club ladder than you imagine. You do race at a very exclusive and highly-competitive club with some very good, but extremely intimidating racers and builders. Your club sounds like it is on - or very near - the top step of the ladder.

As I said, I think there is plenty of stuff on forums and particularly on Facebook that looks at home racing and bog-standard club racing - like what we do at WHO digital. We do very little that isn't covered by tune-up articles on the Scalextric website here and here and here. Those tutorials would be a great basis for some collective tuning and learning, if you get half a dozen or so racers together.

What would be an ideal session of home racing for you?