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Slot Rally GB 2026 - Round One - Oxford

There's been a lot of rain so far this year and our 260-mile round trip from Goring-by-Sea was suitably wet and pot-holed. We made good time, despite some less-than-perfect human navigation at the Oxfordshire end. We arrived at a packed Ramsden Memorial Hall. Thirty people signed-on to compete, including twenty paying the extra fiver to enter the championship. It was going to be a long day...

   

After snaffling a bacon roll and two cups of tea, I was ready to hit the first of our seven stages. The four of us from WHO - Phil, Terry, Mike & me - were in the same group, together with Colin and the two Steves...

         

         

Colin is the creator of 'Mind the Lambs' stage which was going to be our group's first. This was run in the reverse direction to last year...

   

A very neat routed stage across two boards, those cones and gates require some caution - particularly for larger vehicles. I didn't have a bad start - my road-opening SCX Fiat 124 followed by three Nincos - a Porsche 911SC for Classic, Lancia Rallye 037 for 80s/90s and Subaru Impreza for Modern...

         

I decided not to run the new Targo Florio class. Much as I love the real-world event and the cars, I do slot rallying to run rally cars. But I did enjoy watching some very fast Italian machinery - Terry and Phil shared Phil's NSR Lola, Colin ran an NSR GT40, one Steve had an NSR Porsche 908 and the other a rapid Policar Ferrari 312PB.

Nicely warmed up (and my Subaru a bit bashed by the gates), we moved on to the Ninco Raid track. This should have been a favourite for the WHO racers - we always have a stage with off-road track at our slot rally club nights...

   

Not surprisingly, some of the Targa cars did not enjoy this stage - the exception being the Policar Ferrari, which set the fastest time of any car in our group. Of my four, it was the Porsche that was quickest - the only time it would beat both the Lancia and the Subaru.

Another stage completed and we were back to the other end of the hall for Wayne's World - a compact routed stage fitted to a paste table. Mike was making notes for a possible future WHO track...

   

This one's all about rhythm and not bashing the grassy banks. I was happy with my runs - getting quicker with each car.

Some of the groups were breaking for lunch after three stages, but we continued with a fourth - the Ninco Snow stage, which proved trickier than it looks...

   

Going first, I wasn't 100% satisfied by my performance, the Lancia going quickest - a tenth of a second faster than the Subaru. The Targa cars were blisteringly fast on this stage, with Steve's Ferrari quickest of them all.

Time for lunch and to catch up with some of the other groups. Marc and Martin from St Albans Slot Car Club were enjoying the big Ninco 'Stage 7'...

   

And the Whitchurch Slot Rally Club guys deserved a prize for their sharp new polo shirts...

   

For our group, it was time for a well-earned rest before we tackled the two big Ninco stages and the routed Ramsden Green.

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The driving highlight of my visit to Ramsden last season was Nobby's Nightmare - a huge Ninco layout mounted on several boards and featuring elevations, a doughnut-loop and a fiendishly technical flat bit. Last time we did two 'laps', where a good time was sub-60 seconds. This year we were scheduled for three times round and aiming for sub-90 seconds...

   

We did have a couple of runs timed out at 120 seconds - not a lot of leeway there - but that 90-second mark was consistently challenged and broken. Again, I really enjoyed myself. Going last in the group, I had plenty of thinking time to prepare and I attacked the stage from the start - my SCX Abarth 124 Spyder managing a relatively good 101.92 seconds. The Ninco Porsche followed with an 86.73...

         

I then set 83.91 with the Lancia and finished - leaving absolutely nothing on the stage - with 82.31 for the Subaru...

         

Quickest again was Steve's Ferrari, with a sub-80 second time.

We moved on to the big Ninco 'Stage 7' - rather reminiscent of a typical Spanish slot rally tarmac stage - lots of hairpins and cross-overs to give the car an inside racing line through each...

   

No borders or barriers on those hairpins either!

We saw the WHO cars earlier, here are Colin's, Steve A's and Steve B's...

   

   

   

This was another stage where rhythm was absolutely crucial to a fast time. I went pretty well, but Mike - following me - went faster...

   

However, it was the Steves' Targa cars - the NSR Porsche and Policar Ferrari - that went fastest of all.

We ended on Ramsden Green, a routed track that I didn't enjoy last year and didn't much enjoy today either. Undoubtedly lots of practice would be helpful, but I forgo such things...

   

The joint between the two boards was lifting and deslotting some cars, so it was difficult to commit fully and, even then, random deslots were happening. Not the best end to my day, but I did have some good fortune - the right rear wheel of my Lancia fell off a lap or two after the end of its timed run!

As one of the last groups to finish, we didn't have long to wait for the results. As always, my memory of the exact results are a bit of a blur - but they will be published by the end of Tuesday. The highlights were that Mike got a second in Classic for his Porsche 914/6 GT and Steve B was runner-up in Targa Florio with the Policar Ferrari 312PB. Mike got three top 10 class finishes and (I think), both Steves and myself got two each, which was very pleasing!

   

We then hit the road around 5.30pm, the journey back significant less wet than the morning, but certainly not dry. It went pretty smoothly, thanks to ready supply of toffees and mint humbugs - and excellent conversation.

Huge thanks go to everyone at Oxford Scalextric Club for putting on a fabulous day on the stages and in the kitchen. Big thanks also to Phil, Seb and Alan for running the SRGB side of things. We're already planning the trip to Farnborough on Sunday 24 May - let us know if you want to join us, there might be a couple of cars going to this one. More details about the 2026 SRGB championship are here.