Carried Away with Scalextric

Before Christmas I had not thought about Scalextric for years.  This must be the year for Scalextric because as a coincidence our firm's Christmas party had a track setup this year.

Now that I had a Scalextric of my own I started thinking and, of course, got carried away.  I wanted to extend the track to fit a longer circuit in the small attic room. This would need lots of corners and multiple levels to make the best use of the 2.4 x 1.2m space in the tray I had made.

I tried the Scalextric official track design programme but it made my Windows 8 laptop screen flash and the laptop was unusable.  So bad I had to go in to recovery mode and reset back to an older recovery point.  I wasn't going to try that again.

A bit of hunting found several other programmes that did a similar thing.  For the one off use I had I settled on the free Slot Manager app.

It did what I needed and I was able to work out the bits I would then buy.

I've had to make all the supports strong enough to take the weight of a cat because we have discovered that for one of our kittens Scalextric is the best cat toy ever.

I've also added some extra bits for convenience.

The track is now so much longer and great fun.

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Reference:
http://www.scalextric.com/
http://www.johndutfieldmodelrailways.co.uk/
http://www.jadlamracingmodels.com/c-1-scalextric.aspx
http://www.slotcarmanager.de/en/all_frames_e.html
http://www.slotcarillustrated.com/portal/forums/showthread.php?t=70951

http://slot.it/

Scalextric Surprise

This Christmas had a surprise present.  I had no idea and had not mentioned anything.

Shelley decided to get me something completely out of the ordinary.  Under the tree were three very large boxes. You already know what was in them by the title but I had no idea.

Up until that point I didn't know there was even a new Scalextric type.  Digital control of the cars with multiple cars in the same lane and lane changing.

Christmas day was too busy but I got a bit of time Boxing Day morning to set it up on the floor of our little attic room.

Great fun changing lane but I'm getting too old to crawl around the floor for very long so I hatched a plan.

The day after, just after having returned home from off-roading, I bought some MDF sheets and timber from our local DIY store.

The size of the sheets determined the size of the tray I made to fit over the attic room bed. 2.4m x 1.2m.

Much more comfortable and much easier to place the cars back on the track.

Christmas Pud Shakedown

Every year for as long as I have known the Essex Land Rover Club they have done a pay and play day just after Christmas.  It is titled 'the Christmas Pud Shakedown.'

We had not been members for years but with the events of this year we re-joined.  We arranged to meet Andy with 'Joe' , his Defender 90, at the site to have a drive round.




The video shows it was yet another sandy wet site.  Slippery and great fun.

There were quite a few trees but with basic care it was easy to drive round with no damage.

Shelley opted for a more difficult route.




A steep hill at the end of the video that few people, if any, had attempted that day.  Our Discovery using only traction control and low box just crawls over the peak and down the other side.

A great day off-roading with a slight dampener at the end because 'Joe's' brakes failed.  The usual heads crowded round the engine bay to pronounce that the brake master cylinder seals had failed.  We all agreed that it was nothing to do with the off-roading and that it was lucky they did this at 5 mph off-road and not on the motorway.

Brake failure, being one of the few things where you can't tow it home, Andy waited by the side of the road for the AA transporter to take him home while we gave his two teenage children a lift back.

The whole day gave us lots to talk about and our Discovery is left covered in mud as evidence of a fun time.