About Us

Timaru Model Car Racing Club is one of the oldest slot racing clubs in the UK, founded in the 1950's by a number of people, some of whom worked at the Hornby factory in Margate making model trains (but for their hobby they preferred scratch building slot cars). Later, this factory became the world famous home of Scalextric.

Over 40 years this is the 4th Timaru wooden scratch built track and the 5th location for the club (which started nearby in Sandwich, then moved to Worth, back to Sandwich, Eastry and then Birchington before this new track was built in Margate in 1999).

We run both 1/32 and 1/24 scale classes to slightly modified British Slot Car Racing Association rules. Club night is Tuesday from approximately 8 p.m. onwards when we run four 1/32 classes (production, F1, Gp12 saloon and sports) and one 16D 1/24 sports class.

The track has four lanes, lap length is just over 90 ft with a 20 ft main straight and ample power.

As far as speeds are concerned, the slowest class (1/32 production with an inexpensive low power motor) can be as fast as 33 laps over a 3 minute race whilst the widely run BRSCA Gp12 class cars can manage 37 laps in the same time (average speed of about 4.8 seconds per lap).

Spare cars and controllers are normally available for newcomers and visitors to try.

For further information please email the club secretary on info@timaru.co.uk