Friday September 05, 2003

Value Racer

The Scalextric Single Seater

Why is this model worth a closer look? Even though some of you might quickly dismiss it, there are a few things about it that I felt were worth mentioning. Believe it or not, there are actually people in our hobby that have budgets and want to have as much fun as they can for their modeling dollar.

And lets face it, that is the main attraction of this model: The price. At $14.95 your getting a pretty good deal in my eyes, and this car has more going for it than just price. Why put your latest $45-$65 scale model in harms way when you don't have to? This car is perfect to help protect your other more expensive models when newcomers or younger drivers show up for racing.

At least that is what we are using it for, and I have to admit I like having a model that can be tweaked easily for beginners to have fun. As you can see, this car has the old style button magnets in the rear which doesn't really give much magnetic down-force, however this can be quickly remedied.

Using a standard bar magnet such as a Slot-It, Slot Car Place, or Scalextric placed on the underside of the chassis makes this model an instant bullet. So now we are still at a price under $20.00 which should make your checkbook happy. With this magnet in place we were getting lap times of 2.8 on the average with a best time of 2.54. This is VERY close to the recent IRL release, so this simple modification really helps even the field. Of course you don't have to add a magnet, this is just how we do it for our home track. Leaving the magnet out, this model is a perfect candidate for helping beginners learn to drive without making you worry about the possible damage to it as it is more durable than you might think. We have had several good tumbles with it and so far its holding up quite well. The front end won't last forever, but has enough flex in it to withstand some hard hits as we have found out.

This isn't the smoothest model you will ever drive, but still not as bad as some I have had that cost 3 to 4 times more. The tires are very close in compound to the latest IRL releases, but they will need some sanding to get them round and true. One of the tires just need to be mounted on the wheel a little better and had a high spot in the center, but again sanding the tires trued them up quickly.  I also found that the wheels were a little wobbly due to not being mounted true on the axle, but a quick twist of it by hand had it close enough to smooth things out a great deal.

Lately I have been leaning towards models at lower prices because they can be as much fun as those costing twice or even three times more. Some just beginning in our hobby may not care about scale detail or have an unlimited budget. There are also parents out there who might not be into the hobby, but support their children's interest in it. Here again this model fits the bill.

Besides being a great car for the beginner or younger driver, you might be interested to know veterans like them too. Sometimes here at our track we just like to have some light-hearted fun with friends, and these models are perfect for it. Close racing at high speeds can sometimes be the life of the party, and more than once have we recently found this out!

Dollar for dollar this is a decent slot car. It goes from the box to the track quickly and can be just as much fun racing as any other car released today. No, this car doesn't win any scale awards or break performance benchmarks, but it wasn't designed to. For the price I would suggest you try at least one of them and see for yourself, you might find out how much fun they really are.

- Harry

As always feel free to contact me about this article or just the hobby in general at harry@homeracingworld.com, or better yet drop into our Message Forum and share your thoughts with other enthusiasts!

Thanks go to Slot Car World for providing us with this model.