RALLY champions showed off their skills as they competed for a world title in Dartmouth.

The World Indoor Rally Championship using 'slot cars' and some 200 feet of Scalextric style track took place at the Guildhall on Saturday.

Hundreds turned out for the event and the competition was stronger than ever.

Participants had to buy a card to take part and then complete four stages to record their fastest time.

The International Federation of Indoor Tournaments crew took more than two hours to lay the four tracks.

The event which is organised by John Darby attracted interest from slot car clubs and associations.

It was held to raise money for the Exeter-based Greyhound Sanctuary which takes care of unwanted greyhounds and raised a total of £321.

Mr Darby said: "It was a brilliant night. Because the weather was so bad I thought it might wreck it so it was a bit of a slow start but once everybody started coming in it was great. We must have had about 200 people turn out and we had 60 entrants.

"Some were really fast. We also had some seven and eight year olds taking part and they were really good."

John organised the Dartmouth fundraiser with the help of eight slot car enthusiasts. It built on the success of last year's pilot event which was held in Totnes.

The first competitor Daniel Carpenter arrived at 4.45pm and by the time he had posted his time Brian Winteridge had put up the fastest time which lasted until about 7pm when Daniel knocked him off the top spot.

Dartmouth's poet Kevin Pyne also got on the leader board. Nobody touched Daniel's time until almost 10pm when a group of four slot car enthusiast from Paignton arrived and three of the four competitors all took it in turn on the top spot.

Much later than anticipated last year's champion Jamie Hudson-Bond from Dartmouth arrived and pushed the leading driver Dale Lott from Paignton, but Jamie could only manage a credible second.

Dale won with an extremely quick time of 3mins 51.1.

Damie Hudson-Bond came second with 3mins 53.2 and Aaron Stephens was third with 3mins 56.1. Debs Gillard was the fastest woman of the night and 11th overall.

Daniel Carpenter, also from Paignton, held the fastest lap on at least two stages through the whole evening and was on top of the timings for most of the night.