Slot Racing »
...is something it is hard to close your eyes for, if you are a model car enthusiast.
Remember the little plastictrack - shaped as an 8 - you got as a christmas present? Many of us have childhood memories of a Scalextric track and dreamt of lots of new cars every
Christmas. After some years in the doldrums slotcar racing is on the rise again and the cars and tracks offered now are of excellent quality.
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A view of the track at Midtjysk MiniRacing Klub in Ikast, Denmark
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To collect model cars is a hobby you tend to do for yourself. Slot racing is the opposite! Because even if the cars er detailed enough to use for a static display, they are built
to race! And when you race, you need opponents!
In Denmark - where I live - you find many small clubs for grown-up boys who wants to compete with their small cars. Some clubs aims at the highest speed possible - others want
to arrange races for cars as close to their origin as possible. There is a club for everyone. But all have a fascination for motor racing - in large and small scale - as a
common basis. Such a club is a good place where to spend some winter evenings.
Slotcars er of course more robust than static modelcars. They are also built to be disassembled and repaired......and modified! This means they are excellent subjects for practising
you model building skills. You can mount new sponsordecals - or you can repaint the whole car. It is quite easy and you don't ruin an expensive model if it goes wrong.
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Mike Legarth's BMW from the Danish Touringcar Championship
being built and finished at the racetrack
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If you get into racing with very true looking models you can go all the way in slotracing. Some racers build the whole car themselves. The chassis is put together of lots of small
parts and can be adjusted and trimmed endlessly. As body a Tamiya-kit can be used, but some even cast their own bodies. The cars are very detalied and looks every bit as the
original - especially if they crash because then small parts flies all over the place. Just as in the real world.
Slot racing links
The club, where I drive:
Midtjysk MiniRacing Klub
- Ikast
Dansk MiniRacing Union
has a list of many of the clubs in Denmark. The union publishes an informative (and free) online magazine about slotracing in Denmark. It is in danish, so this is an
opportunity to learn a new language.
Forum:
Danish slot racing forum
English slot racing forum
It can be a hard task to locate a hobbyshop with a good selection of slot racing cars and parts. But in Denmark we are lucky to have two enthusiastic slot car racers who have established two very good webshops that can take care of most of your needs:
SlotWorld
Odsherred's Slot Car Shop
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