Winter Season: 5 Alternatives to Simracing (except Real Racing)

With the IndyCar season just coming to an end with lucky champion Scott Dixon, and today’s beginning of autumn, we slowly must look forward to how we approach the winter season.

Of course, simracing. But apart from simracing, which other ways/toys are there to have fun racing in the hours that we win after race season(s)?

5. Good ole’ Hot Wheels or Matchbox

If your inside child is still alive, or better, if you have a little boy (or gal, of course), HotWheels are a nice way to practice haptic skills with nicely looking stuff.

I found the pack on the right interesting, with just enough cars for big pack racing, as well as the garage playset.

If you hate on Hot Wheels, you may want to prefer Matchbox.

Another vendor I really liked is Toy Vehicle Playsets, who sell whole sets racing- (or battle-) ready.

Of course you can also use a pack of IndyCar or NASCAR model cars from the following section for some, uhm, real racing.

4. Model Cars and Collectibles

For the aesthetics and those who love silence, model cars and collectibles are just about right. If you’re like me, you don’t plaster your home with posters and racing images, but have a dedicated and well designed racing spot here and there.

Collectibles are just about right for that, and you typically find your favourite driver somehow.

3. R/C Cars

A classic. What would be more awesome than racing your living room, garden or nearby playground.

Remote control cars are available for every taste and fetish, ranging from R/C-Drift-Cars (another blog by me, just starting), to NASCAR and Formula 1.

Imagine the awesomeness of racing your son or friends using one of the correctly branded RC cars.

For indoor racing, get one of the smaller scales. Even though bigger scales like 1:18 may look nice, you run out of space extremely fast once you move your RC racingcar.

Another classic alternative to simracing follows next.

2. Slot Cars

Slot cars, little cars basically driving on rails. This IS friggin’ racin’. “No mum, you cannot just press it down, it will … … argh! … Crash in the corner, it will”.

Probably THE example for slot cars is German company Carrera, at least in Germany, where “Carrera-Bahn” is used synonymous for every toy of this kind.

One thing I like, now as an adult, I can hold a beer in one hand, while racing with the other hand. Now I only need a robot to fetch ma som’ beer from the fridge. Prost!

And finally, something you may not even have heard of. Something for real men, real women, real boys and real girls. Stay tuned.

1. Tether Cars

Unfortunately, these are not on Amazon (yet). Man, those are awesome, and I did not even know they exist. Indeed I found them while researching this very article.

Tether cars are cars which are, well, tethered to a center post, driving circles inside a safety providing pavillon.

Sounds boring? 213 friggin’ mph (about 340 friggin’ km/h)! THIS IS MONZA/DEGA in your GARDEN! Still boring? You cannot be helped, then. Watch this:

You see, the world is not only real racing or simracing, it’s also Tether Cars, Slot Cars, RC Cars, Matchbox and Hot Wheels and for the silent hours it’s model cars and collectible. Happy Racing everyone!

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history:

• 2019-04-09: fixed formatting