Best Electric Race Car Track: A First - Time Buyer’s Guide

The best electric race car track is an exciting, interactive hobby for automobile fans and anyone who likes speed and competition. Slot cars make an excellent alternative to video games because they tap into similar skill sets—hand-eye coordination, risk-reward thinking, competition, manual dexterity—yet remain physical, i.e. hands-on, three-dimensional, and face-to-face.

We carry two top-quality slot car brands: Carrera, which tends to appeal to younger racers, and Scalextric Sport, which attracts an older audience and enthusiasts. In other words, Carrera may be a bit “toy,” while Scalextric is far more “hobby.” During this post, I’ll explain a number of the features of every brand to assist you to create a far better purchase.

Digital vs. Analogue

Both Carrera and Scalextric offer analogue and digital formats. With an analogue set—the sort that has been around for half a century—you can only race as many cars as you've got lanes. Your controller adjusts the present sent to the track lane, which accelerates and slows down the car there is a particular lane. With a digital setup, the controller is programmed to regulate the car itself. Digital sets have crossover sections that allow you to modify from lane to lane for passing, blocking, and overtaking. These tracks also support more cars, in order that three or four (with some sets, up to six) people can race at an equivalent time. I’ll come back to touch later.

3 inquiries to Help Decide What's Right for You

There are a couple of things to think about upfront if you’re watching a slot car set:

• How old are your racers? I don't recommend slot-car racing for very young children.  Ideally, a toddler should be eight or older, and positively no younger than six or seven.  Eight might even be pushing it for the more technical demands of a complicated Scalextric set. 

 

You need an honest deal of skill and finesse to navigate the track, especially around turns, and practice is completely necessary. You can't just take back on the choke and anticipate that the vehicles should fly around faultlessly.  they're going to get off of the slot and skitter away. Of course, that’s a part of the fun. If there have been no skill involved, you'd get bored pretty quickly. For the foremost part, a toddler younger than 8 simply lacks the dexterity and coordination to understand the finer points of adjusting speed to remain on target, and should not have the patience to place within the necessary practice

 

•  Where will you put your track? The three-dimensional, hands-on, physicality of slot racing is great, but this does mean that you simply need space to dedicate to your layout. Even the littlest tracks are several feet across. You don’t want it within the middle of the front room where it'll get stepped over—or on!—bumped, filled with cookie crumbs and pet hair. The track pieces are generally pretty flexible and robust and are designed to face up to a trodding or two, but they aren’t indestructible.

• How often will you be racing? it isn't an honest idea to line up the track, race a couple of laps, then pack it away again. The tracks are designed to be assembled and disassembled without an excessive amount of effort, but only infrequently. Pulling track pieces apart is typically a touch tougher than clipping them together, and may require an honest deal of force. you would like to form sure that you simply tug evenly so you don’t break the connector tabs that hold them together. Repeated assembly and disassembly also will eventually wear and loosen the connectors, when what you would like maybe a snug fit. Your best choice is to line up the track during a place where it is often overlooked, ideally on a table or platform of some sort. Take it apart only you would like to feature to or modify the layout.

Scalextric 

Our Scalextric sets are the higher choice for hobbyists. Scalextric sets have bigger, more detailed cars (1:32 scale), a number of which sport cool features like working lights and, within the case of James Bond’s Aston Martin from Goldfinger, ejector seats.

They allow you to build bigger and more technically challenging track layouts, and offer bigger and better opportunities for personalization and modification, especially with Scalextric’s digital sets. There is even a fanatical community of Scalextric racing hobbyists, who conduct full-on tournament racing with rules and regulations. With this in mind, you’ll find that Scalextric tends toward more realism—you won’t find jumps and loops here—and more technical demands.

A Note On Track

Scalextric makes a good range of track pieces to customize your layout. Straight tracks are available in a variety of lengths and formats. A number of the unique pieces that are available include starter grids, crossovers for creating figure-eights, side-swipes for bumping other racers, and single-lane tracks to run alongside pit lanes. There are borders and guardrails that clip along the side of almost any piece of track to assist prevent you from jumping the track. Because the track is flexible, you'll give some height to your layouts with elevation supports, banked curve supports, and elevated crossovers.

There are numerous options for curves, from lazy wide turns to harrowing hairpins, crossovers, and side-swipes, letting you add plenty of variety and challenge to your set. The track selector wheel demonstrates the range of curves available. 

Scalextric Digital 

One of the great things about Scalextric is that the transition between analogue and digital is pretty smooth. Upgrading an analogue set would require a replacement power base, transformer, and a few lane-changing tracks, but the cars aren't hooked into one or the opposite exclusively. Analogue cars will run on a digital set with a couple of button presses on the facility base. Lane-changing is going to be disabled, obviously, but it’s nice to understand that your old cars won’t be obsolete if you upgrade. you'll do the other, too: a digital car will work on an analogue set, should the necessity arise. Most of the analogue cars we stock from Scalextric come “digital ready,” and maybe upgraded to digital with the straightforward installation of a microchip. And yes, like Carrera, the standard track is compatible between digital and analogue; only lane-changing elements are exclusive to digital setups.

Most digital sets from Scalextric accompany an influence base that supports up to four cars and may do a couple of neat tricks like set the cars to run either clockwise or counterclockwise. Stepping up to the Advanced Six-Car Power Base brings plenty of features, just like the ability to program various racing modes, set speed caps on individual cars, set cars to scale back speed, or maybe pause within the event that one racer jumps the track, and so on. As far as I’m concerned, however, the good feature is the ability to run ghost cars, so you've got some competition even when you’re racing by yourself.

ARC systems (App Race Control) 

The ARC ONE, ARC AIR, and ARC PRO (for digital sets) are the newest additions to Scalextric’s product lineup, which takes advantage of hand-held smart devices to feature an entirely new dimension to fit racing as a hobby. found a Bluetooth-enabled device opposite the facility base and use the free iOS or Android application to make and control races, track your statistics, manage and share your collection, and more. Before you begin, you'll choose between several different types of races, including Quick Race, Practice, Grand Prix, Endurance, Tournament, Drag Race, Arcade, and car, although not every race is out there altogether ARC systems. As you play, the app monitors almost anything you'll consider, from lap times and lap counts to hurry and penalties. There are several cool additions to combine things up. Turning on fuel consumption, tire wear, or car damage, means you've got to stay an eye fixed on the condition of your car and make a stop within the pits when necessary—or risk disqualification. There are even random “incidents” like engine blow-outs and punctured tires which will bring another measure of unpredictability and realism to the race. After the race, you get analytic breakdowns of your speed, start reaction times, fuel use, and so on, which you'll post to Twitter or Facebook.

Finally, there's a “Garage” mode, during which you'll catalogue the cars in your collection, save track layouts, and post photos. you'll also log your track pieces and accessories and use the app to explore possible layout designs. The ARC Systems each have their own exciting features. 

ARC ONE 

ARC level ARC race system

• Hard-wired hand controllers 
• Core app functionality 
• Analog system
• 2-car racing

 Key features:

• Pit stops
• Post-race statistics 

ARC AIR 

Mid-range ARC race control system

• 2.4Ghz wireless hand controllers 
• Intermediate app functionality
• Analog system
• 2-car racing

Key Features:

 All of the features of ARC One plus

• Wireless controllers (plus rumble)
• Variable race conditions 
• Braking button ARC PRO

Premium ARC race system

• 2.4GHZ wireless hand controllers 
• advanced app functionality
• Digital system 
• Multiple auto racing (up to 6)

 Key features:

 All of the features of ARC AIR plus:

•  Lane changing 
• Multiple cars
•  KERS boost

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