Scalextric

What at the time seemed to be a very innocent statement has resulted in a major new initiative. One of our friends was holding a BBQ and we had offered to take along our Scalextric track for some indoor fun should the weather turn iffish. Now it had been a fair number of years since this track had seen light of day. The last time it was out was at our previous house when we also raided some second hand shops for extra track.

The box of goodies was brought out of storage and the inspection began. Simple track was built to test things, as expected the kittens helped. Not too bad or so we thought, believing that all we needed to do was replace the cars.

Off to do research on what cars would replace these. That's when it went to wherever in a wotsit.

First off onto the Scalextric web site to find things had changed - Sport track had arrived. Or rather Scalextric Sport Advanced Track System. Interesting... and it would fit with the old stuff if the convertors were used.

On the way to buy cars G said and we're only getting cars, we're not getting the digital stuff. Red Flag time :-) Sue said - what's the digital stuff. Well you can switch lanes, have multiple cars on a single lane - but we would need a new power supply. So just cars....

On the way back, yes we had 4 shiny new cars - but 2 of these were embedded in the digital lane change challenge set. The comment - We are not getting Digital - we both knew had been a waste of breath. What we didn't know was that it was going to result in a complete replacement of all our track.

We started building a circuit and on testing noticed that over the new track the cars really whizzed along yet struggled over the older track. So we decided we needeed to replace it all and in time for the party just 2 days away. Hmm that was a challenge given how much we had to replace and how little time we had to do this. So off onto eBay and the Slot car section. Found a great eBay store Jadlam - and by the end of not very long we had ordered a complete reaplcement (and more) of all the track at less than half the cost at the shops. One puzzle was to ensure we had it in time for the party and asked for it to be delivered on a 24 hour special delivery. This was duly achieved and we were ready for the day.

Not wanting to just pack it all up after spending so much effort getting the new stuff to a usable state we decided to turn to the garage. Now remember the garage is also the playground for the 6 pinball machines so there's not a whole load of room left. Worked out that we could get an L shape of 2 8*4 feet panels into the far right corner. G went off to buy wood and legs, Sue started planning the track.

Then we discovered other manufacturers of slot cars and we well and truly heading down that slippery slope.....