Slot Car Magazine – SEPTEMBER 2022, issue 69

In the UK at least the heatwave is now but a distant and mind-boggling memory, when many loft-racers were left wishing that Scalextric track had been made out of some something a little more heat-resistant. I hope everything up there hasn’t suffered too badly. There’s another mixed bag this time, particularly when it comes to model building. I haven’t seen the final layout yet, but I’m sincerely hoping that my own efforts with the two Alfas have been placed sufficiently far away from Pete Shepherd’s works of art for you to have forgotten what mine were like by the time you get to his… Listening to the more elderly and bewildered members of society such as myself going on about motor racing in the old days has (at best) the same excitement as hearing grandad’s war stories for the umpteenth time, but I have to say that I am particularly taken with the new Policar release of Ronnie Peterson’s JPS Lotus 72. As a spotty yoof I drove my mates in my mum’s Mini down to see the 1973 British Grand Prix at Silverstone – my first Grand Prix – and we duly found a spot on the fence on the inside of Woodcote, which in those days was taken at about 150 mph in an F1 car. The 1973 race is most famous for the massive pile-up at the end of the first lap, but for me I’ll always have the image of Peterson, who was on pole and led for much of the race, coming past us in the JPS Lotus, holding it in a perfect 150 mph drift, head slightly canted to one side, for lap after lap. Try as I might, I won’t be able to recreate that on my own track with my Policar version, but that’s where my mind will be. As ever, our huge gratitude to all of the contributors. And finally I must mention Marc, who has just spent £100 on something that is better than a baking tray, but is no good as a baking tray. That’s commitment. Enjoy the magazine!