With Formula One visiting Turkey recently it is the perfect time to feature some Turkish Slot Car Racing, yes, Slotcar Racing in Turkey.

The Turkish apparently have a thriving Slotcar racing scene, complete with national events. The event in the video was held in the Tepe Nautilus shopping center.

Tepe Nautilus, opened in September 2002, is the second-biggest modern shopping mall in Turkey. Built by Tepe Group, it is situated in the Acıbadem quarter of Kadiköy district in the Asian part of Istanbul.

Tepe Nautilus, in walking distance from Kadiköy port at the Sea of Marmara, is the first thematic shopping mall Turkey’s with its name, decoration and architectural features associated with sea and navigation. It covers an area of 170,000 m2. The shopping mall consists of 130 stores on 3 floors, a department store and Carrefour supermarket. It has a smart-parking lot with a capacity of 2,700 cars, which indicates empty spaces. There are Cinemaxx movie theaters with eight screens, a bowling alley and entertainment center. The food court hosts 16 restaurants and cafes. Concerts and exhibitions frequently take place in the mall. 50,000 people visit Nautilus on weekends.

Not knowing too much about Turkey, the interesting thing in the above excerpt is that this is the second largest mall in Turkey and attracts somewhere around 50,000 plus visitors each weekend, and yet it only has 2700 car parking spaces! Can you imagine an American mall with only 2700 spaces, it would be parking hell!

Now, back to the subject at hand, slotcars. Watching the video the competitors all seem very capable, and the competition looks tough. While we struggle here in the US to get slot car racing known, the Turkish are out there getting the slot cars in front of the people. Maybe some lessons can be learnt.

[youtube 7vsJm1Yw0Gc Slotcar Nats in Turkey]