a slot car version of the Mille Miglia.
In aid of the Alzheimer's Research Trust.

The charity was founded by four members of the public as a result of their deep concerns at the lack of funding for Alzheimer's research.  In 1998, the Trust awarded its first first major grant of £500,000 to a team led by distinguished scientist Dr Michel Goedert in Cambridge. The charity now funds over 100 grants all over the UK at a cost of more than £11 million.

In March 2008, author Terry Pratchett, who has the disease, donated one million US dollars to the trust, saying:

"I am, along with many others, scrabbling to stay ahead long enough to be there when the cure comes along.  Say it will be soon - there's nearly as many of us as there are cancer sufferers, and it looks as if the number of people with dementia will double within a generation.  It is a shock to find out that funding for Alzheimer's research is just 3% of that to find cancer cures."

In total, an estimated 700,000 people in the UK have Alzheimer's disease.  However, the Alzheimer's Research Trust estimates that just £11 per patient is spent annually on research into the disease - compared with £289 for each cancer patient.

The 2009 Mini Mille Miglia will raise funds for the Alzheimer's Research Trust in memory of Hazel Lane, the mother of the owner of Castello Slot Racing track.

Hazel was one of the few survivors in a horrendous air crash nearly forty years ago when a plane carrying a group of mothers on a one-day shopping trip to Switzerland hit a mountain as it was coming into land in thick fog and snow at Basle airport.

She dragged herself out of the plane and into the snow with the one uninjured part of her body, her right arm, recovering after many operations, including replacement joints in both hips and both knees.  Sadly, Hazel Lane succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease in 2007.