What do we have for you in this week’s Digest?
There’s a tasty bunch of news cars, plus some nice mods from the forum and Facebook group. We also have an amazing Glasgow-themed layout, some slot car racing news, a hefty pile of quality reading matter, a retro-F1 video and our usual round-up of motorsport… without spoilers.
Slot Cars
- Slot.it Opel Calibra V6 – Mugello ITC 1996 Newly released is this fabulous livery on Slot.it’s classic DTM Opel Calibra. The striking colour scheme was raced by Oliver Gavin at Mugello during his only season in ITC/DTM series. The British driver went on to become a fixture in the Corvette works team, taking five class wins at the Le Mans 24 hours and winning a ton of silverware in the States.
- NSR Corvette C7R 2015 Le Mans 24h Speaking of which, the winning GTE Pro car from 2015 – driven by Gavin, Tommy Milner and Jordan Taylor has just been released by NSR. There’s also the sister #63 car, which didn’t start the race.
- TTS March 782 ‘Astra’ The first livery on the 1:24 scale TTS March 782 Formula 2 car represents the privateer car of Italian driver Piero Necchi. The future looked bright for Necchi – and he put in some memorable performances during the 1978 F2 season in this privateer Astra March. However, it wasn’t quite enough for a shot at the big time. You can read the full story and see more of the TTS model in the News section.
- Jaguar Mk 1 George Turner’s Coombes Jaguar Mk.1 is back on the website, this time with a new 3D printed chassis. The decals depict the famous Roy Salvadori car which is now raced most years at the Goodwood Revival.
Tracks & Scenery
- Glasgow Track Think Scalextric have built a fantastically detailed rallycross track featuring some of the iconic elements from the banks of the River Clyde such as the Squinty bridge and the Finnieston Crane.
SlotRacer on Facebook
- Pete’s Racing Replicas light up the SlotRacer Facebook group It’s always a pleasure to admire Pete Shepherd’s fabulous custom builds. Pete has shared plenty on our SlotRacer Facebook group recently – and the George Turner MGC and PSK Ferrari Dino are two of his best yet.
Scalextric Tuning
- Ken’s Scalex Mini Upgrades Ken has transformed the handling of this Scalextric Mini Cooper S, using replacement parts and years of knowledge and experience. The stance looks much better too! You can see how he did it over on the forum.
Events
- London International Slot Car Show Slot car enthusiasts from across the south and east of England will be heading for Orpington on Sunday 10 April. Phil Smith always puts on a good show and vendors will be keen to sell their wares. Dates for all this year’s slot car shows and swapmeets are in the Events section of the forum.
Slot Racing
- SlotNav – Navigational Slot Rally This framework for navigational slot car racing was unveiled on the SlotRacer forum over the weekend. It uses off-the-shelf digital slot car technology to create junctions – the basis of any navigation. It’s still early days, but the SlotNav journey could be an interesting ride.
Magazines & Catalogues
- Magazines ePilot continues to keep us all updated on the latest slot car and rail magazines, which this week include Model Railroad Hobbyist, DRS Magazine, DRS Magazin Special, Trackside Model Railroading, Slot Car Mods, and Car On-line.
- The Library The SlotRacer Library is a huge collection of catalogues and magazines dating from the very beginnings of the hobby, right through to the present day. We have everything from official brand catalogues, and brochures, to independent periodicals, and magazines covering a wide range of slot racing, and modelling subjects.
- Faller New to the Library this week are a manufacturer that was founded in 1946, and are still going strong. Faller specialise in HO railway buildings, but also made the Auto Motor Sport system which is featured in these vintage catalogues.
Video
- Ayrton Senna’s most important F1 cars Most of Senna’s F1 cars have been released as slot car models over the years – and Scalextric have new set paying tribute possibly the greatest Grand Prix driver of all time. Goodwood Road & Racing have set Alex Brundle loose at the 78th Members’ Meeting to tell Senna’s story through six iconic cars.
Automobiles
- BMW E31 8-Series Petrolicious just keep serving up some wonderful photo essays – this week focussing on a pair of rather elegant BMW E31 8-Series 1990s grand tourers. George Colbeanu delivers words and pictures to celebrate the 850CSi and 840Ci Sport, owned by a father and son.
Motorsport
- Saudi Arabian Grand Prix The weekend in Jeddah was punctuated by some troubling episodes. And because of late-night highlights, we’ll keep this a spoiler-free zone. When you’re ready, catch up with all the goings-on at Autosport, who probably have the finest F1 coverage anywhere.
- ERC Azores Rallye 2022 The Azores Rallye has some of the most breath-taking scenery on the European Rally Championship calendar. The action was memorable too, with locals Ricardo Moura and Antonio Costa attempting to hold off regular ERC and Junior WRC stars in some typically dramatic mid-Atlantic weather. You can watch highlights on the ERC website.
- NASCAR at COTA The first roadcourse action of the 2022 Nascar Cup Series calendar took place at the Circuit of The Americas this weekend. As always, all the important action, stats and fall-out can be found on the Nascar website.
- Classic Touring Car Club at Silverstone There was a fabulous grid of classic touring cars at Silverstone over the weekend. This is club racing at its best – passionate enthusiasts putting on a great show and the likes of BTCC champions John Cleland and Colin Turkington getting stuck in. You can find out more on the Classic Touring Car Racing Facebook page.
