When an opportunity arises to relive the youth that I wished I’d had there’s always a part of me that thinks it’s never going to be that good. Like playing with Barbies, buying the cabbage patch kid dolls on eBay or even trying to do a Rubix cube past the age of 18. Hornby’s Scalextric was one of the must-haves at Christmas in the 80s toys that I never really got to experience fully. You see we had a hand me down set of track, lots of weirdly coloured pieces from Oxfam that nearly fitted together properly and cars with wire wool for connectors. The cars either went and didn’t stop or, you guessed it, didn’t frigging work at all. As like all parents, I wanted to give Dorothy and Beth that chance to have the opportunities we never really got. Unfortunately when it came to testing the new British Touring Car Championship Battle Scalextric Set, Bethany was at the local fair which was mostly closed and Mrs P has had a terrible kidney infection and been bed bound!
So it was just me and Dottie then! YES!Unboxing the gorgeous, real to life Touring Cars, there are some amazing details in these models. A Honda Civic Type R against a BMW 1 Series. Two beasts that I’ve driven in real life and now on the track, the one with a magnetic metallic strip down the middle. [gallery size="medium" layout="slider" ids="15575,15574,15573"] Out of the box, the cars have their connectors already attached so there no need to have to build these beasts. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of spare braid plates for those that just can’t stay on the track. Something to watch out for those is before you start building your choice of layout, you need to keep an eye out for the very grubby babyzilla trying to eat the cars!
Out of the box there’s 4 different track formations for you to choose from and of course, the bridge over the track was the one I wanted to setup. Was amazed that the supports were included in the set, I remember using old yellow pages to prop up the track.
There’s also some great news as Hornby now save you having to search your local buy and sell groups (today’s Oxfams), by including the lap counter too! An awesome feature I always wanted because my uncle cheated and always said he did more laps than I thought!
Putting together the track was a damn sight easier than I remember too. I have nightmares of building a great layout only to see it fall apart and then it’s almost impossible to take apart and put together again. I’m sure it ended up with me having to have the track at 45 degree angles.
So when I started building I was very surprised to find out how easy it is to connect bits of track and then to dissemble when Mrs P finally comes down stairs, wants the use of the front room back! Party pooper.
On each side of the track is two slots and two connectors as well as the track. You don’t need to worry about that though as once you’ve lined up it all slots in easy. And without having to find weird angles and use words you haven’t used in 30 years. Like pleb!
Having to use flash for this image to really show you the detail, to take the track apart you just push the two tabs with the arrows on, bottom and top. Hey presto, it comes apart quicker than the toilet rolls I used building Tracy island whilst watching blue peter.
This Scalextric set was the dreams of my youth and I’m hoping my children will relish in the theatre and drama of a close full speed challenge as it was either all or nothing! And if not. There’s always room for another player give me a shout 🙂
To be fair, Dorothy tried her best to give it go and the speed restrictor on the controller was amazing, but at 1 1/2 she was no match for me! 🙂
If a Scaletrix set is on your Christmas lists (I mean you children’s), here’s a link to find out more and order up before they sell out!
With storm brian the lighting was horrible so we only got a few videos of low quality!
If you’d like to see more Scalextric action follow them on social: ■ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Scalextric ■ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scalextric ■ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialScalextric ■ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialscalextric/ Thanks to Hornby for providing the Scalextric Set for us to review, all opinions and photos are all mine. I hope no one goes through the same mismatched scalextric set story as mine :)]]>
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