Scalextric etc

[Barry Ten]

I always had two competing toys when I was small - Scalextric and trains. The trains won out but most years I'd get the Scalextric out of its box around Christmas time and have a few days of fun, although the delights of crawling around on carpets began to wear thin with the onset of middle-aged knees. About ten years ago I upgraded to a Scalextric digital set and found it to be hugely enjoyable. This then saw me gradually repairing and converting some of my older cars, including ones from the 70s.

 

Getting fed up with constantly crawling around after de-slotted cars, I decided to buy four inexpensive folding tables and set up a temporary layout in the spare room, with bits of railway layout stored under the Scalextric tables for the time being.

 

 

The area is about 12 x 4, which gives room for a reasonable layout using a combination of new "Sport" and old "Classic" track, with transition pieces. The Sport

track (including digital lane changers) isn't as grippy as the old, which adds to the driving interest.

 

 

The pit lane is a great addition to the play value. I've been scouring ebay for these old pit garages which just fit between the two tracks.

 

 

The pit lane entrance, with the start grid and the 6-car digital powerbase.

 

 

Plenty of crash barriers!

 

Digital conversion of old cars is easy, provided there's a reasonable amount of room in them. A hole needs to be drilled in the underplate for an LED to point down to the track sensor, and then

it's just a case of unsoldering and resoldering a few connections, as with DCC. 

 

Here's an old UOP Shadow:

 

 

This is a basic model with no underplate, so I made a simple mounting for the LED and then tucked the chip into the side-walls:

 

 

New rear tyres helped the model get a bit more grip on the newer track.

 

The nice thing with the digital format is that it opens up a lot of possibilities for more realistic and enjoyable racing, especially with third-party race management software. The one I've been using is

SSDC (Scalextric Sport Digital Console) which runs on a laptop connected to the digital powerbase, and all allows all sorts of race parameters to be set, including fuel usage, penalties, yellow flags

and so on. Murray Walker does voiceovers! Pace cars can also be set to run, but these are a bit tricky to set up so for the time being it's just my wife and I against each other, although up to six friends could race at the same time. We find a 50 lap race with heavy fuel usage to be a good combination as there's about 10 - 12 minutes of driving, with quite a few fuel stops being needed.

 

Does anyone else still have an interest in Scalextric, or any of the many other slot-car systems and manufacturers?

Edited May 25, 2021 by Barry Ten

[Allegheny1600]

Hi,

I’m certainly not active in this anymore but I used to have quite a set up in the late eighties.

It filled a lot of my upstairs front room and friends from both my railway and cycling clubs would come round to race. One friend came barging in with the words “mine’s a Ferrari” - he was after my then new 328!

Seeing your setup brings it all back, thanks. I don’t know what I did with mine, probably traded in for more model railway stuff.

I’m surprised to see that Scalextric has gone digital although I suppose I shouldn’t be. It sounds great fun.

Cheers,

John

[Kris]

I purchased a digital set for my sons and it has been great fun playing with it. The lane changers (we've got 3) make a massive difference to the experience and are a total game changer in my eyes. 

[Oldddudders]

Guilty. My first slot car was a Revell Corvette Stingray, purchased in September 1965. I was a member of Reigate Model Car Club for several years. I am still stuck in a time-warp from 1962-71, and mainly sportscars, which of course is why Deb and I retired here in 2004. I have a covered terrasse nearly 30' long, and like you, from time to time set up folding tables and create a circuit. I have a timer and lap counter thingie, and that means running cars on my own is fine - which is the quickest car over 10 laps? 

 

I have a lot of cars that will never see the track, which sounds stupid, but with some at over £100 I do not want to damage them. They form a display in my dining room. For example, I think I have a model of each of the fastest 13 qualifiers for the 1970 Le Mans. I have at least a dozen different Porsche 917s, which I saw race at Brands Hatch in 1970 and '71. I keep an eye on new releases, and sometimes am astonished at what has come onto the market - Ferrari 365P2 was a case in point a couple of years back. 

 

I do have some modern stuff, and Deb had a particular liking for Saleens, so there are several of those, which we saw race here at Le Mans and at Spa. The day she bumped into Steve Saleen at Le Mans was epic for her! New wife Sherry ('Ashcombe' on here) liked the livery on a Ford a couple of years ago in the 24 hrs, so I am looking out for one of those. 

[Tony_S]

I got an old year 2000 Scalextric set out last year and set it up in the garage. It was a bit cold earlier in the year so my wife suggested using the dining table. I think it will be warm enough to go out again soon.

 

This isn’t digital but I did add the Scalextric ARC Air system which lets me race against a pace car.  
One of the original Scalextric cars has had a makeover, new 3D printed chassis, alloy wheels and new motor. 

[New Haven Neil]

I'm a bit amused by the fact all this 'old' Scalextric is so much newer than the stuff we had in the 80's....which probably dated from the 70's....

 

Old Lotus and Cooper F1 cars with Ackermann steering, some later Audi rally cars with '4WD' - elastic bands linking the axles!  An SD1 Rover police car (always lost) and so on..... Not sure what we did with it, gave it to someones kids I suspect as yes, our knees also gave up on the floor.

[Ben B]

Our big treat when me and my sisters were little was getting to play with Mums Scalextric; bought with the first proper wage from one of her first 'proper' jobs was spent on the Rally Mini set (red and yellow minis).  Loved that set, she's still got it up in the loft at home.  One Christmas I got a Ford rally set, then my favourite, the Police Escort with the working light and siren.  Sometimes at Christmas when I go back to visit with my foster-kids we get the Scalextric sets out (haven't room for one at our house, just the Micro sets).  Great fun!

 

I keep seeing odd cars in the new ranges I really want, even though I don't have anywhere to operate them... the Mad Max V8 looked incredibly tempting

[peanuts]

some of you may enjoy a trip here https://stonerigraceway.co.uk/

[Tony_S]

32 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Le Mans.

I sometimes do my own version of Ford v Ferrari.

[Barry Ten]

Excellent, keep it coming!

 

Here's the SSDC website. I downloaded an evaluation version then paid for the software once I was

sure it worked with my set-up.

 

http://ssdc.jackaments.com/

 

The other main one that I know is rms64 which is probably more full-featured than I would need:

 

http://rcs64.com/

[Kris]

We don't go for any of this building on a table malarky. Poor old suffering knees on the carpet it is. 

 

[Barry Ten]

It's relatively easy to track down spares and replacement parts for knackered old models, as with this Datsun. I'm in the process

of stripping it ready for a repaint and new decals. This one goes like stink!

 

[Barry Ten]

3 minutes ago, Kris said:

We don't go for any of this building on a table malarky. Poor old suffering knees on the carpet it is. 

 

 

Crossovers! Scary!

[simontaylor484]

We had a set when We were kids it was a pair of metro's and banked Brooklands type curves. Added interest was provided by a button you could hammer that sent air down a plastic pipe under the track that lifted a small "trapdoor" in the track to disrupt your opponents car. 

 I believe that the set was called Blowout.

 

This was supplemented with a le mans start section various chicanes and skid sections that were glossy plastic. 

 

Other cars were also purchased including the police sd1

[Tony_S]

When I was a teenager (late 1960s) I  was a member of a slot car club at the Rover factory in Solihull. It was all quite serious stuff with cars being scrutinised for scale. Rear tyres were sponge rubber and a nice teacher at school allowed me to turn alloy wheels for them. Chassis were brass plate with various wobbly bits allegedly to improve handling. Bodies were sometimes from plastic kits but later on vacuum formed were the most common. They are still available nowadays. Motors were based on the Mabuchi can but were often rewound and the armature balanced. Quite often the home rewind let out smoke. My chassis construction was achieved with a rather large soldering iron heated up on the gas hob.

Tony

[Barry Ten]

1 hour ago, simontaylor484 said:

We had a set when We were kids it was a pair of metro's and banked Brooklands type curves. Added interest was provided by a button you could hammer that sent air down a plastic pipe under the track that lifted a small "trapdoor" in the track to disrupt your opponents car. 

 I believe that the set was called Blowout.

 

This was supplemented with a le mans start section various chicanes and skid sections that were glossy plastic. 

 

Other cars were also purchased including the police sd1

 

I remember seeing that trapdoor thing in a very old Scalextric catalog that I had as a kid - full of stuff that had gone out of production even by the mid-70s. I had no idea it was air powered!

 

I've got the Goodwood and Skid Chicanes in my Classic Track but there was only so much room on the table. I've seen it suggested that you should avoid chicanes and crossovers with the digital racing as there's already more than enough interaction without adding opportunities for crashes! 

 

[Barry Ten]

Hours of fun:

 

http://www.scalextricguide.com/

[Kris]

8 hours ago, Barry Ten said:

I've seen it suggested that you should avoid chicanes and crossovers with the digital racing as there's already more than enough interaction without adding opportunities for crashes! 

 

Nah, the crashes add to the fun. Just add this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scalextric-QuickBuild-C1301-Demolition-Derby/dp/B00BCU6Y5W

 

Have a smashing time 

[Reorte]

I've got quite a large box of Scalextric, going back to a set my grandad bought in the 80s. Sadly one of the original two Minis is missing. It's been added to quite extensively over the years.

Several years ago I set it all up in the pub one evening, and had a large knockout-style competition. It was quite a success - nearly drank the pub dry in the process, but having spent the entire evening alternating between beer and leaping around putting cars back on the track (by the end of it it was pot luck which lane they got put back on) I was sore all over the next day!

[Oldddudders]

24 minutes ago, Reorte said:

I've got quite a large box of Scalextric, going back to a set my grandad bought in the 80s. Sadly one of the original two Minis is missing. It's been added to quite extensively over the years.

Several years ago I set it all up in the pub one evening, and had a large knockout-style competition. It was quite a success - nearly drank the pub dry in the process, but having spent the entire evening alternating between beer and leaping around putting cars back on the track (by the end of it it was pot luck which lane they got put back on) I was sore all over the next day!

Missionary work of the finest sort!

[Johann Marsbar]

I had Airfix Motor Racing when I was small, rather than Scalextric, and actually still have it all to this day - though it lives in the loft now and has done, with one exception, for about the last 45 years!

I did extreact it and set it up at the local transport museums "Modelfest" about 10 years ago and it proved quite popular there. Still got the Airfix buildings to go with it as well.

[Johann Marsbar]

I managed to find my Airfix Motor Racing catalogue from the mid-1960's, just in case people weren't aware that Airfix produced such a thing.

This is the set I have (plus a lot of extra track & accessories and another car...)

 

 

 

 

[Barry Ten]

5 minutes ago, Johann Marsbar said:

I managed to find my Airfix Motor Racing catalogue from the mid-1960's, just in case people weren't aware that Airfix produced such a thing.

This is the set I have (plus a lot of extra track & accessories and another car...)

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for that, it's very interesting to see the system. 

[Oldddudders]

Do I recall Wrenn did a system? Formula 152, 1/52nd being the obscure scale, I think.

 

 https://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/index/Category:Formula_152

[New Haven Neil]

My next door neighbour 'back home' had the Airfix mountain job with Minis - was it Monte Carlo?  Cardboard sheets slotted together to hold the track up a steep climb - too steep, the cars could hardly get up it!