ON A STRING AND A PRAYER

It's the fastest motorsport you've never heard of, like a cross between Swingball and a mini wall of death. John Evans visits the world of tether cars

- John Evans

A few weekends ago, 62 multimillion-pound cars were hurtling around the Circuit de la Sarthe for 24 hours at speeds in excess of 200mph. At the same time, a couple of dozen much cheaper ones with the potential to go equally as fast were tearing around a circular track, fortunately with no possibility of leaving it unexpectedly in a shower of sparks and advanced composites.

That's because the cars, around 45cm long, weighing up to 3kg and powered by tiny two-stroke engines, were attached to a centrally mounted pole by a length of steel piano wire.

It's called tether car racing, although in truth only one car can be run at a time - the point being to go as fast as possible or, in another form of competition that levels out the various classes, to achieve a pre-declared maximum speed. The current world record speed is 215.290mph, achieved in 2019 by a 10.0cc car fielded by an Estonian. The British record is 200.370mph achieved in 2012 by a car developed and run by Oliver Monk, 70, a former merchant navy seaman.

Monk, who has been racing in Europe for 20 years, is my guide for my visit to the Buckminster Tether Car Group during their Saturday practice day at their home, the British Model Flying Association's national centre at Buckminster, not far from Grantham in Lincolnshire. It's a beautiful day for it. Nearby, model jet planes, looking and sounding just like the real things, perform aerobatics in the clear blue sky, while a little further away, the men and women of the BTCG ready their tether racers for practice.