Scalextric Track FAQ

Track and Accessories

Scalextric has been making 1:32 scale plastic sectional track since the 1950s. Its Classic track system, continuously in production for more than 40 years, has remained the undisputed leader in durability, versatility, and space efficiency. Scalextric has developed a track system for the 21st Century. Its Sport track system retains all of the best qualities of the Classic track system and added features and capabilities racers have been asking for. Sport track retains the same dimensions as Classic track. Sport includes all the same track sections, including half-standard curves and 1/5 or "short" straights, and will bring back outer-outer curves, giving Sport users 4 different curve radii and guaranteeing unmatched versatility and layout options. Sport track, like Classic track, is made of a resilient plastic material, described as "linear low-density polyethylene" that allows it to be used in situations where maximum durability is vital. You can step on it, assemble and disassemble it over and over, and let children play with it unsupervised without worry about the track breaking due to less-than-gentle handling. It is somewhat less flexible than Classic track but still flexible enough to allow flat curves to be banked simply by fastening them down to an appropriate support structure constructed to the desired bank angle. That task is made easier by clips that slide into the track edges and allow the track to be firmly secured to the tabletop without having to put any fasteners through the track itself. Sport track lies flatter than Classic track. Its plated steel contact strips are flush with the track surface, which has much less texture than Classic track. The improved track surface delivers greater grip with silicone and other high-traction tire compounds. The result is smoothness and performance previously seen only on fragile and far less user-friendly rigid plastic track. Sport track can be assembled and disassembled without lifting it off the tabletop. The sections slide together easily and click into a strong, positive connection that holds the track sections firmly together. Quick-release tabs on the track edges allow easy disassembly. The contact strip ends have been revised for the best possible electrical continuity. The slots are deep enough to allow any 1:32 scale home track RTR car to run on Sport track without modification to the guide. Commercial track guides may still have to be thinned and possibly shortened but they do not, in most cases, have to have any depth trimmed off.

Q. What is the best way to fasten track to a table (plywood etc.)?
A. In a perfect world, it is best not to nail or glue the track to a base. The reason for this is that plastic and metal (the two ingredients of Scalextric track) expand and contract at different rates. If at all possible keep your track layout in a dry and constant temperature room. This will minimize the warping and kinking in your track. I you need to fasten the track to a table you can use our #C8232 track clips. These slip into the edges of Sport track and allow you to use a wire brad to fasten your track down. On the older Classic track you can carefully drill, using a 1/16" drill, a hole from the underside, through the center of the nub that the connecter from the next piece of track fits on. This will allow you to use a ¾" wire brad through the whole to fasten your track down. You can use black paint or a felt tipped marker to touch up the nail heads so the do not show as much.

Q. Are the old (Classic) track and the new (Sport) track compatible?
A. You will need to purchase a converter straight, part #C8222, to be able to use both styles of track. These converter pieces come as pairs.

Q. How do I make my layout line up?
A. The Scalextric track system is the most versatile plastic sectional model car racing track system available today. With it you can make almost any layout your imagination can devise. Here are a few tricks that will make your layout building easier and more successful. Have you ever come to that last track joint to be connected and found that your track sections are just a little bit short of connecting or not lined up? You can fix that problem with some half, quarter and fifth straight sections. To make up a small shortfall in length, replace a full straight with a half, a quarter, and two fifths, or a half and three fifths, or whatever combination fills the gap. Or, if you're running long, a half, a quarter, and a fifth, a half and two fifths, or a quarter and three fifths in place of a full straight will usually shorten up the track just enough for a perfect fit. On 4-lane layouts, sometimes there will be a gap between the inside and outside track sections. Combinations of fifths and quarters can be used to lengthen the inside sections or shorten the outside sections to snug them up against one another. If you get to that last connection and one end is a bit to the left or the right of the other go back to another straight that lies at an angle (90 degrees is best) to the straight you're trying to connect. Use halves, fifths, and quarters to lengthen or shorten that straight, pulling the one you are connecting into alignment. You may then have to use a different combination of short sections to lengthen or shorten the track at the connection point. With a little practice and an ample supply of the shorter straight track sections you will find that there is literally no layout you can't fit together, no matter how odd or complex a combination of turns and straight a ways you have laid out.

Q. Is there an inexpensive way to go four-lane racing?
A. When expanding from a two-lane to a four-lane layout with plastic sectional track, a cost-effective way to get all the additional track, cars, controllers, and power system components you will need is to buy another of the same set you already have. Then create a layout using all the straight track sections two abreast and all the curved track sections on the inside of the turns. Then, just purchase enough outer curve sections to complete the curves and you have a complete 4-lane layout at a lower cost than buying all the additional components separately. Once you have your basic 4-lane tri-oval you can go on from there to any kind of 4-lane layout configuration you want. You can go from a tri-oval to a D-shaped oval or a symmetrical oval just by adjusting the way the curves are distributed. All ovals have only 360 degrees of curve, so you can make any oval configuration you want with the same number of curved track sections. You can create a road course by adding additional turns, and you can expand either an oval or a road course to any size you like by adding additional straight sections.

Q. Can I clean my track?
A. The truth is that there are many products out there that will clean your track running surface and power contact strips or rails effectively, and each racer's "hot tip" usually turns out to be whatever fell readily to hand and worked. Plastic track usually doesn't require much in the way of cleaning unless you are using a lot of oil on your cars so it drips on the track or you have some sort of problem resulting from the environment in which the track lives from day to day. You can usually use just a dry cloth. However, sometimes this may not be enough and a cleaning solution of some kind is needed. If you are going to use a cleaner, make sure it cleans through a mild solvent action, not by any sort of abrasive action, and doesn't leave any oily residue (or if it does, be sure to use a clean, dry cloth to wipe it all off). We have used a product called Rail Zip, made for model train tracks. We have also used WD-40, Parma Braid conditioner, Marvel Mystery Oil, and Tiger Milk. Tiger Milk, by the way, is a light oil that dissolves grease and dirt through a gentle solvent action. Anything that dissolves whatever kind of grease or oil that may be on the track and doesn't contain harsh solvents that can damage the plastic track surface will do the job, so use what you already have around the house (but test it on a small area before you do your whole track with it.) As far as oxidation goes, whatever will clean up the oil and grease will also get any normal oxidation. Your plastic sectional track should last years, if not decades, in normal use. Slot car tracks of all kinds do best where humidity is controlled and the temperature varies as little as possible, but your Scalextric track should do fine in any normal household environment. Some Scalextric owners have 30 year-old track still giving good service in regular use. The plating on the steel contact rails will prevent rust with no coating of any kind until the plating begins to wear off from normal use. This should take years. Even when the plating does begin to wear an occasional wiping down with one of the cleaners mentioned above should be all the cleaning it needs. Be sure to clean carefully the contacts between track sections to ensure good electrical continuity. It's a good idea to take your whole layout apart every 6 months or so and carefully clean every electrical contact surface, especially the metal tabs that provide contact between track sections. The one thing you absolutely don't want to do on track in good condition is to use any kind of abrasive that will remove the plating on the rails and expose the raw steel. Of course, when you already have serious rust you'll have to remove it with some sort of abrasive. If things have gotten that bad the plating is already compromised. Fine emery cloth, sandpaper, a wire brush, or even an ink eraser will do the trick, depending on how deeply pitted the metal strips are. Using an abrasive won't do any more harm than has already been done and it's better than abandoning your track to the rust. Don't use steel wool, however, as tiny pieces of it constantly break off and can cause a short circuit between the positive and negative track rails. After cleaning, be sure to coat the steel rails with a rust inhibitor, like WD40. Without the plating to protect the steel you will have to repeat the abrasive cleaning process frequently, but as long as you don't mind doing it you can keep on using your track and you will still be able to get lots of racing out of it. Just remember that on any track sections with the plating still intact you don't want to use any kind of abrasive for cleaning.

Q. How do I troubleshoot track power problems?
A. Most purchasers of Scalextric race sets find that their layouts maintain good electrical continuity with few problems and with so little power loss at the joints between sections that it would take a far longer layout than most people could fit into their homes for the normal slight cumulative loss to become noticeable. However, sectional tracks do occasionally develop continuity problems due to debris, bent tabs, or unusual oxidation. When you get two bad (though not completely broken) connections on the same lane it can cause an area of diminished power somewhere around the layout. Fortunately, finding the bad connections usually is not a problem. Any time you suspect a power drop in any lane of your track, take apart one track joint at the farthest point from the power section half a lap away. Starting at the Power Base drive or test rev your car one section at a time all the way around until you find a spot where it stops going. When that happens you've found the culprit, and you can fix the joint at that section. Take the joint apart, clean the tabs on the track rails and the underside of the rail on the next section where it makes contact, and bend or tweak the end a bit so that it makes a good solid connection when rejoined. Do this in both directions from the Power Base to find all the poor connections. Since the electricity makes a complete circuit it is difficult to find ONE bad connection in the circuit, since the current can still feed the other way, but if you purposely make one break it becomes easy to find the bad connection since the portion of the track between it and the break will show a loss of power, resulting in a dead spot. If you have more than one power tap take apart the track once for each tap, and the method will still work. If one lane is completely dead over its entire length you can use a similar technique to find the problem. Disconnect the track from both ends of the terminal track section. Select a car you know to be in good running condition and test it on both lanes of the terminal track. If it works on one lane but not the other, switch controllers and try it again. If the previously bad lane now works then the first controller is bad. If the lane still doesn't work, the problem is in the terminal track's wiring. Once you determine that both lanes work on the terminal track, reconnect track sections in groups of 4 until the lane stops working again. Then disconnect the four pieces most recently added one at a time until the power is restored. The last section removed will have a short circuit, which usually turns out to be due to a tiny strand of pickup braid wire or other metal debris touching between the two rails. Scalextric's booster cables offer an easy way to add a second power tap on the far side of the circuit. This is not necessary, except on a truly enormous layout, to make up for the normal minute power losses between sections, but it is cheap insurance against losing power completely on a distant part of the layout if you get two really bad connections.

Q. How do I tune my track to improve electrical continuity and smoothness?
A. Several things, in addition to a loss of power on a stretch of track, can cause the cars to appear to lose power in a particular place, especially strong-magnet cars These can be fixed by some massaging of the track itself. One is binding of the slot in the guide. The steel track rails extend down the sides of the slot and tabs on them go through openings in the bottom of the slot where they are bent under to clip the rails securely to the plastic. Sometimes the tails bend outward into the slot, and can cause a car's guide to bind. Also, excess plastic from a less-than perfect mating of the mold halves (flash, as it's known) may be present at the ends of the track sections and can also grab the guide, slowing down the car. You can solve both problems by running the serrated edge of a 50-cent piece or silver dollar along the slot, rubbing it back and forth across the section joints and pressing it from side to side wherever you encounter tightness between the rails. Another is bent rails or warped plastic that causes a track section to bow upward, bringing the track rails up so close to the car's traction magnet that it bogs the car down from excess magnet drag. You can flatten out warped track sections simply by leaving them on a flat surface in the sun on a hot day. Of course this can be hard to arrange in many places, especially in the winter, so a heat lamp or other source of radiant heat will do. Bent rails can be gently worked back straight with your fingers. Any kinks in the part inside the slot can be fixed with the coin-in-the-slot trick described above. The goal should be to have each piece of track sitting completely flat on the table with no warping either along its length or across its width. Another is abrupt change of grade from one-track section to the next, which, in extreme cases, can cause a car to high-center. If your track has an overpass it is necessary to provide a gradual and smooth change of elevation both going up and coming down. The overpass supports supplied in most race sets are not enough. You need to add extra graduated support piers for several feet before and after the overpass. Better still, build a solid structure into your table to support your up and downgrades over their entire length. Another thing that can cause problems is placing several quarter or fifth straight sections in succession. This can cause a rough, bumpy stretch that some cars, especially the less stuck down ones, may have difficulty with. Where you have had to use several of these sections to make a straightaway the same length, try to spread them out over the full length of the straightaway, alternating them with full straight sections. For maximum flatness and best contact between sections the track rails need to be drawn back tightly against the track surface. You can do this by turning each track section upside down and using needle nose pliers to pinch together more tightly the tabs built into the track rails that fold under the bottom of the track and hold the rails in place. Put one jaw of the pliers in the gap in the bottom of the slot and the other one on the other side of the tab and simply squeeze it tightly together. Do this to all the tabs on both sides of the slots. This draws the rail down tightly to the track surface. Between this and the flattening of the track with heat all scraping and magnet hang-up problem should be solved. You will also want to squeeze the metal tabs on the ends of the track rails down firmly onto the plastic tabs immediately below them. This keeps the metal tab end from being bent backwards when snapping the track sections together. It's a good idea to do these tweaks to all the tabs on all your track sections. It's time-consuming but it pays off in the overall performance of your race set. When putting the layout back together squirt a little WD40 into each track rail where the tab from the next section inserts into it. Some of our customers have also reported good results from using tiny dabs of electrically conductive grease on the tabs.

Q. How and why do I want separate power supplies for each lane?
A. To begin with, powering each lane separately requires a transformer for each lane, and that in itself, is highly desirable for supplying the amperage needed to run strong-magnet cars, such as Fly cars or Scalextric cars equipped with after market magnets. A single pack for two lanes really does not offer enough amperage for two strong-magnet cars or two cars with hop-up motors. Neither car will deliver its full performance. More important, powering each lane separately ensures that the power going to each car will be uniform at all times and can't be affected by what the other cars are doing. Where two or more cars are powered by the same source and there is not enough amperage to go around the cars fight each other to get enough power. When one car deslots or stops the other one gets a blast of amperage that can send it off the track if it happens at a critical deceleration point (and it always seems to). With a separate power circuit to each lane the power to each car will not vary, even if each lane's power supply does not give quite the amperage the cars' motors would like. Each car may be a little slower than it would otherwise be, but its behavior will always be the same and the driver gets no nasty surprises. This makes driving to your car's limit much easier and more pleasant. The easiest way to accomplish this is to plug two Scalextric #C977 power packs into the wall and into your power base (#C8217). With any multi-transformer setup, if you want to be able to turn the power to all the lanes on and off to start and stop races, plug all the transformers into an outlet strip with an on/off switch and use the switch for your master power control. If you want the transformers and the outlet strip tucked away under the table out of sight and out of easy reach you can plug the outlet strip into an extension cord with an in-line switch and route the cord to place the switch in a convenient location. To take maximum advantage of your track power upgrade with strong-magnet and other high amp-draw cars you also need controllers matched to the cars' requirements. In general, the more amperage a car draws the lower the desired resistance rating of the controller (measured in ohms) will be. Scalextric sets come with 70-ohm controllers, which are fine for the cars that come in the sets. With the hotter cars you will need 25 to 45 ohm controllers to achieve maximum control. Layouts and tables. You probably won't get very far into the slot car racing hobby before you decide it's time to set up your plastic sectional track layout more or less permanently on a table. Here are some suggestions that will help you with the project.

Q. What is the best way to build a table for my plastic track-racing layout?
A. Half-inch ACX plywood with a framework of 1 X 6s underneath will make a very satisfactory table for a home racing layout. Use glue and screws to fasten the tabletop and framework solidly and permanently together. For legs, use 4 X 4s cross-bolted to the 1 X 6s at each corner. Bolt 2 or more tables together to make larger layouts with 3/8" bolts through the 1 X 6s. If you want to be able to store the tables when not in use or move your layout tables around easily in your truck, van, or station wagon, use metal folding leg assemblies, available in most home improvement stores for around $20 a set (one set per table). Glue and screw extra rectangles of plywood to the bottom of each table where the leg assemblies are to be attached. Before building tables for a portable layout, be sure to measure the inside of your vehicle and size the tables to fit.

Q. What height should my table be?
A. A good height is about 33 inches from the floor. The legs are 30.5" long, and then we have casters on all of them so we can move the track around. This height seems to provide a good view of the track for all but the smallest children. The height works well for turn marshaling around the layout. People can reach all parts of the track without having to bend over too far.

Q. What if my layout will be used mostly by young children?
A. A track that will be used primarily by young children will be easier for them to work with if it's about 24" from the floor. This is a little low for comfort for most adults, but not excessively so. You and your kids can still enjoy racing together comfortably.

Q. What about other table dimensions?
A. The main one to consider is the overall area and shape of the table. This, of course, is dictated by the space you have available. Most 2-lane home race sets can be set up in a single 4X8 table. The effective minimum for a 4-lane layout is two 4X8s, though you will probably want to go larger if space permits to get a layout with more driving challenge.

Q. What else should I consider?
A. Another important consideration is the maximum horizontal reach from the nearest edge of the table to all parts of the track. For average size adults, try to keep the maximum horizontal reach to 36" or less, and 24" for small children. If your layout is built on 4 X 8 sheets of plywood this will largely take care of itself, as long as you don't put two of them side by side and then have turns to marshal that are 4 feet from the nearest edge. Try to avoid any layout that requires you to reach over one part of the track to get to another. If one side of your layout has to be up against a wall, try to run a single long straightaway the full length of that side to avoid as much as possible having to marshal cars in a difficult-to-reach location.

Q. What about overpasses?
A. Many slot racers consider an overpass to be an essential part of a layout because it helps to equalize the number of left and right turns and the lane lengths. An overpass can also enable you to twist the racecourse in on itself and get a longer lap length into a given space. However, unless you have no other way of getting the lap length you need into the available space we recommend avoiding overpasses as they cause sight line and turn marshaling problems, increase the complexity of construction, and don't look very realistic. You can overcome any difference in lane lengths by running your races in heats, with the drivers rotating to a different lane after each heat until each driver has driven a heat on each lane. If you do build an overpass you will want to make a solid plywood structure to support the plastic track through the required elevation changes. Be careful to avoid abrupt changes of grade that can cause the front end of the car to hit the track and deslot.

Q. Can I make banked turns on my layout?
A. Yes! The flexibility of Scalextric track allows you easily to create turns with up to 20 degrees of banking using ordinary flat curved track sections. The key is to provide solid support under the track. The best way is to lay out your curve on the table, trace around the outer edge of the track plus outer borders (Always use both outer and inner borders on a banked turn.) Then remove the track and borders and use a saber saw to cut the table along the line you traced, all the way around the outside of the turn and for at least 2 full straight sections before and after the curve. Exactly halfway through the turn, insert a wedge under the cutout area to raise the outer edge to the desired height above the table surface. (You will need some bench work or a piece of plywood fastened under the bottom of the table for the wedges to sit on.) Place wedges all around the turn and under the cut-out area along the straights, graduating the height of the wedges both ways from the first one all the way to near the ends of the cutouts along the straights to provide a smooth transition from flat to banking and back again. When you have all your wedges in place (don't fasten them down, yet) put the track and borders in place and test with your cars until you are sure they will drive smoothly around your new banked turn and that you have the degree of banking that will provide the speed you are looking for. The best result will be a banked turn that lets you drive around it considerably faster than on a flat turn, but not at full throttle. That keeps the driving challenge in it. When you are satisfied with your banked turn, glue, screw, or nail the wedges in place. Fasten the track down to the plywood every third or fourth track joint. Use sheet Lexan or thin plywood to make a wall around the entire length of the banked area, and you're done!

Q. Where else do I need walls or guard rails?
A. You will want to put a wall around the entire perimeter of your table to keep deslotted cars from leaving the table and heading for the floor. About 2 inches is as high as you will need except at the end of a long straight where full-throttle crashes may send cars flying much higher. We use 4-inch wide 1/16" clear sheet Lexan for the walls on our table, extending 2" above the table top all around except for a piece extending about 10" above the table and 2 feet long right at the end of our longest straight as insurance against a flying car going through the front of the glass display case across the aisle. With walls on the edges of the table and borders in all the necessary places on the track, you can dispense with guardrails at the border edges, except where a deslotting car might land on another part of the track.

Q. What are the track borders for and where do I need to use them?
A. The borders allow the car on the outside lane to slide out on the turns as much as the cars on the other lanes do without running up against the guard rail or putting a wheel off the track edge, Either of these things will usually cause the car to deslot. You should use borders on the outside of all curved track sections, on the straights before and after each turn for at least two full straight track sections, and on the inside of any turn immediately following a turn in the opposite direction. If you plan to run your track in both directions, make sure you have placed the borders in the appropriate places for both directions of travel. The straight and inside borders allow the cars to get straightened out after a curve without dropping a wheel off the edge of the track.

Q. Borders are somewhat expensive and I'm on a budget. Is there a lower-cost alternative?
A. Yes. Model railroad cork roadbed will bend around curves of any radius. A layer of HO cork on top of a layer of N-scale cork gives you just the right thickness to match your track. Use the cork exactly as it comes from the box. Don't split it along the diagonal cut in the center as you would to use it under railroad track.

Q. How can I be sure I have everything right before I start making things permanent?
A. When you build your tables it's a good idea to set out your sheets of plywood on a temporary structure in the approximate arrangement and height you expect to use for your layout. Then set up the track and run the cars for a while, checking to see that sight lines and marshaling access are suitable for all the likely users of the track. Adjust the table height and arrangement and track layout until you are satisfied with the driving qualities of your racecourse and access to all parts of it. Make sure the drivers' positions are located so none of the drivers have to look too far to the side or through the other drivers to see any part of the track.