SUD AFRICA - SOUTH AFRICAN INTERNATIONAL SLOT CAR RACING GRAN PRIX 17TH 20TH MATCH 2023

This is the Pretoria Model Car Club track, where the South African International Slot Car Racing Grand Prix (www.saigp.co.za) will be held from the 17th - 20th March.

I last raced there 26-years ago, in 1997, where I finished a rather lowly 11th place, out of 21 entries. It's not a track I like.

This will be my 63rd South African national race since starting out in 1972. I'm not a particularly good slot car racer, only managing to win 8 Grands Prix, although I won the SA National Champion title once and finished runner-up twice. My most successful years were from 1980 until 1983, when I picked up 7 wins from 15 Grands Prix. Back then we only raced open class 1/32 sports cars (the equivalent of today's ES32), but the fields were much healthier, in terms of the number of entries, than it is today.

I left South Africa in 1984 to work abroad and that was pretty much the end of slot car racing for me, although I did attend a couple of Nationals in SA while living abroad. I started racing again in 2014, when I retired and moved back to South Africa at the end of 2013.

INFO RUSSELL SHELDON