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
PHOTOGRAPHY JOHN BRADSHAW
£900 Price of a quality 10cc tether racing engine.
A few weekends ago, 62 multimillion-pound cars were hurtling A 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.