Groove rider: Slot car racing is back

History is repeating itself.

I’m standing at the side of a multi-lane slot car track, finger twitching on the trigger of my controller and desperately trying to beat my dad around the circuit, my BMW M1 against his Ford GT40.

We last did this decades ago when he built me a 1/64 scale Aurora track, but even then he was quite the expert.

In the late 1960s my father, Ivan Berg, was making a living designing hotel conference facilities, and building models on the side for his friend who ran the Beatties model shop in London. The family living room was taken over by a 100-foot-long Airfix track and regular weekly race nights were held, often attended by the local constabulary who’d leave their squad car and their Roadcraft outside.

When the Rank Hotel group was looking for a fun apres-ski activity to install in its Aviemore hotel, my dad suggested a slot car track. He designed and oversaw the construction of the circuit, with its slots routed into a plywood base and the metal braided electrical contacts laid in by hand. The track was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh and my father was commissioned to build another on the Isle of Man.

By the time I came along he’d moved on to new ventures but slot cars were still a memorable part of my childhood and, I hope, my own kids’ as well, as several birthdays built up a reasonable sized Scalextric/Carrera combo that’s now gathering dust in the loft.

And so we find ourselves at what is claimed to be Europe’s biggest, and certainly Britain’s only, dedicated slot car centre – Race Wars in Milton Keynes – and not that much has changed in 50 years.

Step inside what looks like a shop front and you’ll discover seven slot car tracks where anyone from the age of six and older can book a session and race in private groups or with other visitors, with prices starting from £7 for 30 minutes of wheel-to-wheel racing.

Build it and they will race

Six of the seven tracks are built exactly the same way as my dad would have designed them, with a wooden base, while one is made from off-the-shelf Carrera plastic track. All but this one use hefty 1:24 scale cars which dwarf the Scalextric models that so many of us, and our own kids, are used to.

Paul Cooper, owner of Race Wars, still fondly remembers his own first slot car track with its pair of Jaguar D-types. “I’ve been a model builder all my life. I’ve always built models from power boats to radio controlled cars,” says Paul.

The idea for Race Wars came about quite by chance. Cooper and his wife were attending a wedding in Hamburg and around the corner from their hotel was the Renncenter slot racing venue. Paul was rather more excited about this than the wedding and spent all the time he could racing and talking to the owner, reigniting his childhood passion.

As Cooper developed his own vision for a slot racing centre back home he visited Hamburg a further 20 times or more.

“At the time, there were 69 private slot car clubs in the UK which were more for the experienced racers. But there was nothing in this country where people could come along, have a bit of fun and be introduced to the hobby,” he explains.

Located in a retail centre in Milton Keynes with takeaway restaurants for neighbours, Race Wars took Cooper and his team six months and “a heavy six figure” sum to fit out and build the tracks. Each circuit also has its own timing screen with sophisticated computer software to control the racing which had to be designed for Race Wars’ specification.

“That’s the biggest difference to my day,” says my dad Ivan. “We used to have mechanical lap counters. The cars are much better as well, so much more durable – ours would probably only last 20 minutes before something would break, so we’d have a team of people constantly repairing them.”

There are around 40 Carrera models to choose from for visitors who pay £13 for an hour of racing which can be split across several circuits. The standard race format is three minutes long, with drivers swapping lanes after each race to ensure a fair fight and that nobody hogs that advantageous inside line.

Race Wars’ centrepiece is a huge eight-lane track that once hosted British Slot Car Racing Association events, but is probably a little too challenging for newcomers. The other circuits are all quirkily landscaped with themes including Stonehenge, Egypt, an airport and a coastal track, complete with its own lighthouse.

None of the cars are fitted with magnets, so you can’t just pull the trigger to the max and zip round. Instead, you really have to pay attention to the braking zones and learn the circuit, going easy on the throttle on corner exit to avoid spinning out. Then, as you switch tracks, you start the process all over again. All the while you’ll be scanning between track and screen to watch your lap times and those of your rivals. It’s a whole lot more involving than your home Scalextric, that’s for sure.

Slot car racing is for all the family

With its licensed bar, fast food and chart music pumping out through a powerful sound system Race Wars has a similar vibe to an indoor karting track. If you want to race something a little more substantial than a slot car there are also four linked Fanatec simulators running Project Cars which cost £10 for 30 minutes.

Cooper perhaps best sums up the appeal of racing slot cars. “We recently had four generations from the same family, with the children, their parents, the grand parents and great grandparents, all taking part and racing one another on the same track. Where else can you do that, and not need any particular ability to compete on even terms? It was fantastic to see them having such fun.”

Having opened (and closed, and opened again) during the Coronavirus pandemic Race Wars is zooming ahead, proving popular with families, birthday parties, corporate events, stag and hen parties, and more serious players. The day we visited members of the the Red Bull Racing F1 team were booked in for a night of slot car action, while several regular racers have now bought their own cars and a membership club is in the offing.

If I’m ever going to beat my dad I reckon I’ll have to join.

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