How fast is the fastest slot car in a straight line?  This is probably the simplest and most obvious question about slot car world records: it is certainly a question I've been asked many times by the public.    

Full size cars have been specially built to be the fastest in a straight line since the end of the 19th century, quite early in the 20th century these cars became too fast for normal roads, and the later records were set at places like Bonneville salt flats and various deserts. Slot cars have a miniature version of the same problem.  There can be no doubt that given a long enough and smooth enough straight track, slot cars could be made to achieve higher top speeds than is possible on the  circuits and drag strips where slot cars normally race. 

Just occasionally somebody sets out a slot racing equivalent of the Bonneville salt flats. This was done in on 13/14 June 2009 at "Cincyslots" in Cincinnati,  Ohio USA.    The fastest time was set by Tom McNay covering a nominal scale half mile (actually 82 ft 11 in / 25.27 meters)  in  0.356 seconds which works out at 158.8 mph (255.6 km/hr).  This was set using a 20 volt power supply, using 12 volts Tom covered the distance in 0.473 seconds which works out at 119.5 mph (192.3 km/hr).   More detail of the record

NOTE
These are all actual speeds.   Sometimes vastly higher records are claimed by using  "scale speed".  Unfortunately there are several different ways of calculating scale speed, so "scale speed" doesn't mean much unless it is made clear which type of scale speed they are talking about.    I've  stuck  to real speed as this is easily understood and unambiguous.  

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