Slot.it CA36e Opel Calibra V6 - ITC Mugello 1996 - Oliver Gavin. RRP £64.95. Available now.


It's always a treat to receive a bundle of photographs from Galileo Engineering - and this latest batch is no exception. Featuring another tasty livery on Slot.it's awesome Opel Calibra V6 DTM racer, the car is also a nice tribute to British driver Oliver Gavin, who retired from motorsport last year.

       

Bedfordshire-born Gavin was a rising star in the mid-90s. At 19-years-old he'd won the prestigious Autosport 'Young Driver of the Year' award for 1991, hitting the headlines as winner of the British National Formula First Championship. Gavin finished runner-up in the British Formula Vauxhall Championship the following year and moved up to the highly-competitive British Formula 3 Championship in '93 - winning five races and ending the season runner-up. A disappointing year in Formula 3000 followed, but Gavin returned to British F3 and took the 1995 title with six wins, overcoming fierce rival - and future Jordan F1 driver - Ralph Firman in the final race at Thuxton. For Gavin, a test drive with the Pacific F1 team materialised during the year and he was scheduled to drive at the 1995 season-ending Australian Grand Prix... but the FIA refused him a Super Licence in rather controversial circumstances. Pacific folded soon after and Gavin's rise was halted...

       

Pictured above with other former 'Young Driver of the Year' winners at the 1996 award ceremony, Ollie Gavin (third from left) spent that year racing in the FIA International Touring Car Championship - the short-lived global expansion of the German DTM. He'd got a season-long contract with one of the big-hitters - Joest Racing, who were effectively the Opel works team. Depending where the ITC was racing, Gavin's #8 Calibra carried either Opel or Vauxhall sponsorship...

       

However, as team-mate Manuel Reuter battled Bernd Schneider and Alessandro Nannini for the 1996 ITC championship, Gavin's best results were a pair of sixth places at the Estoril weekend in May. Arriving at the crucial Mugello round, Gavin was forced to hand his car to championship-leader Reuter and make do with the spare. ITV's Simon Taylor takes up the story, with lots of coverage of Brits Gavin and Franchitti...



It was certainly a better weekend for the Scotsman, with a fourth and a second - moving up to third in the championship standings, behind Schneider and Reuter. Race 1 started well for Gavin in the Opel, passing eight cars to end the first lap in eighth - only to be scuppered by a Stop & Go penalty for nerfing Modena's Alfa. A decent start in Race 2 fizzled out in a retirement. Gavin was dropped for Hockenheim, returning at the final two rounds in Brazil and Japan - 16 points left him in twenty-third place and looking around for a drive to re-boot his career. His most significant role was three seasons driving the F1 safety car - although he would have much preferred to be in a car following it.

       

Of course, Ollie Gavin joined Corvette in 2002 and carved out a magnificent palmarès in international sports car racing. At Corvette, Gavin has more starts (202), championships (five), race wins (51), 24 Hours of Le Mans victories (five) and pole positions (25) than any other driver in the programme’s history. One particularly memorable victory was at Daytona in 2016, when Gavin held off Antonio García's sister Corvette to win the GTLM class by just 0.034 seconds at the end of 24 hours. Oliver Gavin announced his retirement in October 2020 - and his final race was a fourth place finish in class at the 2021 WEC Spa 6-Hours, this time alongside García. He now runs his own driving academy, in partnership with Corvette - and is interviewed by Simon Arron in this week's Motorsport magazine.

       

Back to Gavin's Opel - and his is the sixth livery on Slot.it's Calibra V6 - plus a white kit, that has just been re-released (with no major revisions, I'm told). Of course, Reuter eventually won the championship in 1996 - his black car was produced by Slot.it, alongside another 1996 Joest Calibra of Alex Wurz. The DTM/ITC Calibra was 4-wheel drive - and although the Slot.it model is rear-wheel drive, it is relatively easy to convert using the Slot.it 4WD components. Indeed, suitable wheel inserts are included under the tray. As you can see, the car is fitted with the new SP45 cables, allowing a Slot.it Carrera or Scalextric digital chip to be fitted without any soldering.

The Ollie Gavin Opel is available to buy now from all your usual Slot.it retailers. It's the best of the Classic DTM/TC range, so they usually get snapped up pretty quick.

A big thanks to Jo, Stefano and the team at Galileo Engineering for sending us the pictures and answering questions.

   

   

Our long-awaited return to the Barn takes place next Wednesday - 6 April...

WHO Mod & WHO Tuners Race Night - Round 4 of the 2020-22 WHO club championship

Regulations can be found here: https://www.whoracing.org.uk/rules.html

Doors open at 6.30pm - please don’t arrive earlier... unless you’re part of the set-up crew, of course!

And we do ask that all racers aged 12 or younger bring a responsible adult with them.

Race fees: FREE! Both races in April are free. There will be a charity box for any donations.

Club Cars & Controllers: Our AFX Mega-G+ club cars remain available – each of them stays on its coloured lane. We also have a big box of DS, Parma and Ninco loaner controllers to borrow one for the whole evening. There is no extra charge for using either the club cars or the controllers.

Covid precautions: With Covid cases still high on the south coast, we're asking you to take a lateral flow test sometime on the day of the event and also not to attend if you have any symptoms that might be Covid. This is to keep vulnerable members of the extended WHO family safe. Inside the Barn, wearing a face mask, practising good hand-hygiene and giving each other space are non-negotiable requirements. We will ensure as good ventilation as possible - and will also have hand sanitiser and spare masks available if you forget your own. Any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Do let us know if you’re coming: This will make the job of our race control volunteers easier – especially if you need to borrow a controller or use the club cars. Please email, message, text, reply on Facebook or here on the forum etc.

Race Coordinator: We’ll be using a new race management system at our HO events. Doug Passell - founder of one of the original UK HO clubs - has been helping get Race Coordinator ready for next week and we'll using the Chesterfield HO Racing Club rotation. Doug will be helping us develop the system over the rest of the year - so any feedback about what’s good and what could be better will be most useful. A big thank you to Doug from all of us!

Send us your avatars! One feature of Race Coordinator is that you can all have your own avatar. That can be a picture of you, a favourite driver, cartoon character, your pet etc. It needs to be a square-ish shape, a jpg, gif or png file - and less than 1 MB in size. Just email your avatar to us before next Wednesday to be ready for the first race.

 Good Morning

So here we are again, time to think about another Proxy Raid Rally      

   


It was great fun last time and I am pleased to say we have 6 willing hosts ready to take on whatever the entrants throw at them 

However please read the rules attached carefully, as our expectations for the scratch builders have been raised and the vehicles must be capable of running on the hosts tracks without favour. If the vehicle is not able to run as others in the class it will not be run.

We are working out a schedule to run as from the beginning of August, so please register your interest (some of you have) by end of June, cars to be received by end of July . Event fee will be £15 for the two vehicles you enter.
 
The competition is meant to be a vehicle capability test, rather than a straight flat sprint race.

Good luck with those builds 
 

Exteme slotting 2022 rules.pdf Size: 94.86 KB  Downloads: 335

Sunday the 10th April will see the 34th London International Slotcar Show at the Crofton Halls Orpington in South East London.

Opening time is 10.30am and it will close at 2.30pm, admission is £2.00 with under 16's free,

There is plenty of parking in the station car park which is adjacent to the hall. (there's a short-cut back to the halls next to the Roman Villa, if you can find it!)

Tables have been restricted to thirty once again so as to maintain social distancing to some extent as covid case numbers are still very high,
so not as many traders as usual, but still nearly twenty in total.
Full details here https://www.philsmith.co.uk/slotcarevents.html

Here is a list of table holders already booked, If your name is not here and you were expecting it to be then please contact me.

roger barker
the slot outlet
paul blows
scaleslotcars.com
kevin bennet
viking slot car club
robert campling
scalemodels
darren mcHarg
john gavin
john couser
steve cannon, aka triplex
rino roucco
mike flight
nscc
martyn hey
adrian norman
tim james
stephen langford
joel thura

Hello everyone, 

Does anyone out there have any experience of racing either the Ninco 1 Mustang and Camaro models, or the newer Policar Subaru BRZ's??

I am looking at introducing a new Club Class, having decided to give up on the old Scalextric BTCC Super tourers we had been using. We race 4 lane analogue, with both a Routed track and a repainted Scalextric sport track. 
Routed is 30 feet, fast and flowing, Scalextric sport is 50 feet, much more technical and multi level.  

We have numerous, mainly Scalextric classes, so it would be good to have something different. I would like some form of Saloon based class, we have other classes already covered, but not Saloons. We race non magnet, and I would like the class to be box standard, or as close as possible. 4 cars, colour coded to each lane. Don't need to be really quick, just something we'll matched and robust! 

Thank you in advance, 

Pip

Bit late with the updates but:

January saw in a new calendar of racing at Viking SCC and opened with the familiar favourite of Slot It Group C. It's always a joy to see the variety of classic group c cars in iconic liveries.

Cars are run stock with Slot It silicone rear tyres which keeps it a very evenly matched class.

   

   

   

By the end of the month the standings were:

1st: Wayne H - Nissan R89C
2nd: Darren C - Porsche 962C
3rd: Ade C - Mazda 787B

Hi Guys,
I have for sale these two NSR Moslers, used but VGC.
Both have brand new pod/gears and motors as well as new stock guides/braid.
I ran them with different pods/motors and guides.

Wheels are NSR 17 Air hubs with glued/trued used NSR Ultra tyres, fronts are Sloting Plus 17 with varnished front tyres. Slot.It inserts all round.

Will be supplied in NSR boxes, but not the correct ones.

I am after £58 each including postage to the UK, other destinations will need to be calculated.

   

   

   

   

Please PM any queries, Thanks.

We recently had a model car flea market. Almost everyone there is selling/buying 1/25 scale kits. I'm looking for a few 1/32 gems within the haystack. I hope to turn these into slot cars... one day.

   
   
   

I've tried to buy the Airfix Aston Martin DB5 on three separate occasions. I've had to return all three kits for a warped roof line that doesn't match the windshield.

Several people have told me that the Triumph TR4A is either straight as an arrow. Or unbuildable. Ouch!

I was excited to see the re-release of the Jaguar 420. So I bought one. Oops. Big mistake. One rocker panel was warped inward. The other outward. This is on a new release.

   
   

Instead of going back to the store. I thought I would try a different approach. I contacted Airfix directly. They said they would send me a new part if I send more money (30% of the cost of the kit) for shipping. I said "you already got my money. I'm not paying more for this kit or your mistake in sending it out". They suggested I take it back to the store for a refund. Done. The store said they won't re-order more Airfix car kits for the lack of QC.

A friend approached me at the slot car show last Sunday with a box under his arm. He plops it in my hands and asks for mere coffee money. I laughed and told him the story.

I'm told this is the same mold. But handled very differently under the MPC brand.

   

Unlike the Airfix. This MPC kit came with a full compliment of chrome. Sweet!

   

The body is straight as an arrow. Flash is minimal.

   
   
   

So while this thread is under the "what grinds your gears" section. It has a happy ending.

Thanks for looking,
Ken

All hail the steering wheel, all hail the steering wheel... 

   

All hail the pace notes, all hail the pace notes... 

   

...and the heathens...