I consider myself a pretty good driver. In 22 years behind the wheel I’ve mastered many vehicles, from a Challenger tank to a 185mph TVR Sagaris in the name of local newspaper journalism – and I have the pictures to prove it. But today I’m racing a Formula 1 car… and I’ve just been beaten by my five-year-old son.
Perhaps this statement requires some qualification. For a start, Milo is nearly six – that extra nine months makes a real difference in the world of competitive parenting.
And for another, it’s not full-size cars we’re racing, but 1/64th scale slot cars. We’re joining the Swindon Four Lane Blacktop Slotcar Club at Marlborough Scout Hut, as they host the local heat of a 10-stage regional competition.
Slot car racing is the affordable Formula 1 – heats are held in Marlborough, not Monaco, and cars start at £15, rather than $4 million. But like F1, there’s a winning combination of driver skill and technical know-how – owners will often modify their box standard cars, and it’s not unusual to find guys with engineering skills behind the controller of a slot car.
Deane Walpole of the English Association of HO Racing Clubs – the HO is the model scale – tells me: “All the guys like to tinker with the cars – they tune them and fit new motors to them to eek out a little more speed.”
And like full-size racing, fractions of a second are vital. When my son beats me – to my eternal shame – in the first heat, it’s by half a second.
The cars travel at around 18 mph – no mean feat when the wheels are the size of garden peas – around a 100ft long course with four slots. Drivers take it in turns to have inside and outside lanes, racing on each of the four slots in the qualifiers before going through to the final rounds.
A beginner, like me, can expect to achieve around 13 laps in the allotted three minutes. Experienced drivers will record around the 20 mark, meaning the novices are lapped time and time again. The race ends when the three minutes is up. The power is cut and the cars grind to a halt. A computer, which has been measuring lap speeds and the distance of each car travelled, displays the podium places.
Within my first couple of practice laps I reckon I’ve got it sussed – fast on the straights bits, and slow right down for the bends. Milo prefers driving at full throttle, which means his cars fly off the track at every sharp bend, and into the hands of a marshal (yes, they do spell it with one L in motorsports), who quickly sets the car back on the track.
It soon becomes evident that slow and steady does not necessarily win the race. Milo’s flying car tactic gives him an average lap time pretty much equal to mine. He soon learns to moderate his driving – slowing down slightly for the corners – while I become more of a risk-taker, and lose my car several times as a result. The cars of the experienced drivers, I notice, rarely if ever leave the track.
Between heats I grab a minute with Rob Lees, a member of the Swindon club, which meets on Tuesday evenings in St Mary’s Church Hall in Marlborough – the club’s home since the Swindon clubhouse burned down, when thieves torched a stolen motorbike too close to the premises.
The local club actually races 1/32 scale models – the size used by brand-leader and household name Scalextric. The club has 20 members, with around 10 racing at each meet, and the membership includes an airline pilot and a guy who works with industrial lasers.
“Because a lot of the fun is in modifying the cars it attracts people with an engineering background, and it’s a great way of educating yourself about mechanics and electronics. But you can have a lot of fun just getting a car off the shelf and racing it too,” promises Rob.
Anyone interested in slot car racing in Marlborough can contact Rob on 07785 111999 or by email at rob9lees@yahoo.com
