Ready, steady, slow: World snail racing returns

Participants in the World Snail Racing Championships will be slugging it out this weekend.

The gastropod gallop will take place at Grimston Cricket Club, Congham, near King's Lynn, on Saturday.

Organisers said they expected up to 200 entrants to vie for the prizes of a "very juicy bunch of Romaine lettuce" for the racer and an engraved pewter tankard for the trainer.

Snail master Nicholas Dickinson said: "We have a lot of snails in our own stable, which we make available for hire so anyone can enter."

However, some people spend weeks preparing for the event and come with a tank brimming with snails, having fed them up and painted their shells so they can be easily spotted as they slither along the 13.5-inch course.

"We get some curious and interesting names - my favourite from a couple of years ago was Uslime Bolt," said co-organiser Mr Dickinson.

"You can train them - you need to make sure you feed them well leading up to the competition.

"[They need] something green – lettuce, cucumber – any vegetable of that sort is good for them to gorge on."

The championship, which raises about £500 for the village church, will be held as part of a fun day held in the grounds of Congham Hall.

Snail racing used to be staged at the village fete in the hall's grounds, but the pandemic signalled the end of the event despite its history of more than 60 years.

"A resident of Congham, Tom Elwes, was on holiday in France and came across a snail racing competition and thought ‘this is amazing’ and brought the idea back to England," said Mr Dickinson.

"The big difference is we look after all our snails – whereas in France they all get eaten at the end of the race apart from the winner.

"As the owner of Congham Hall, I was keen for the competition to be kept going in our grounds – it had been taking place here for all those years so... we got together with another businessman and resurrected it."

The shelled creatures will compete across a round table, trailing a slow course between a small red inner circle to a large black outer circle.

The winner of each heat will make it to the grand final, with a chance to take on the Guinness Book of Records' winner Archie's two-minute time - set in 1995.

While some people might think it was easy to keep track of the competitors, Mr Dickinson and fellow organiser Ian Haynes had found some snails liked to cheat.

"Quite a few of the snails try to hitch a ride on the back of others," said the snail master.

"They’re very disobedient - some of them try to creep over the start line before they’re all ready so you have to keep pulling them back.

"But once we’ve got them on the start line and all ready to go, Ian declares the race with the phrase: ready, steady, slow."

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