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Slot.it CA33d Audi R8 LMP #3 24 hour of Le Mans 2001 - J. Herbert, D.Theys & R. Kelleners. RRP £64.95. Scheduled Spring 2022.

Slot.it have just announced a planned 2022 release. The car is the Champion Racing Audi R8 LMP that qualified third for the 2001 Le Mans 24 hours and then retired early in the race. Possibly as interesting as the body is a change of chassis design - the new CS33t-60b chassis incorporates a standard Slot.it guide, rather than the rather fiddly LMP guides that were fitted in the past. Slot.it have hinted that they are moving away from the LMP guides wherever possible. The new chassis is also set up for digital conversion using Scalextric, Carrera and oXigen compatible chips.

   

The R8 LMP certainly provides a wider range of liveries than the later Audis - and the Champion Racing colour scheme is one of my favourite. The 2003 Le Mans car was scheduled for release by Slot.it in 2014, but I can find no record of the model being produced. It's great to finally see the Champion Racing colours join the Slot.it LMP range.

       

Champion Racing were a Florida-based team founded in 1993 by Trinidadian rally driver Dave Maraj. Champion would go on to become the most successful north American sportscar team of the 'noughties', thanks to their partnership with Audi. Running in the same livery as 2001, Champion became the first American team to win Le Mans for nearly forty years with victory in 2005. Maraj also led Champion Racing to five consecutive American Le Mans Series LMP1 championships, two as a private team and three as a factory team under the name Audi Sport North America.

The Champion Racing Audi R8 LMP is scheduled for a March/April 2022 release and is available for pre-order now at Pendle Slot Racing and other Slot.it stockists.

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The release of the Champion Racing Audi is not far away - these two images are from the UK Slot Car Festival a couple of weeks ago. And as it's Le Mans weekend, let's look back at the chaotic early stages in the rain at La Sarthe in 2001...



The Champion car didn't escape the carnage - and neither did the Gulf-sponsored Johansson Audi, which has also been modelled by Slot.it as CA33b.