My First Scalextric Set.
How it started…
Back in 1996 I bought my first Scalextric set for my first born son’s Christmas present. It was a simple figure of 8 track with 2 lanes, nothing fancy. In the run up to Christmas I was itching to have a go, so me and a couple of work buddies spent the evening in a blast from the past. Was just like a memory from my childhood. Crash’s, corners and the thrill of competition were rife. However, it was almost impossible to keep track of who was in the lead and by how much. So I searched through the Argos catalogue, since the internet wasn’t really a thing back then. I couldn’t find anything which kept scoring and position for Scalextric tracks.
Into the nitty gritty.
Not wanting to put my engineering degree to waste, I built my own scoring system. Which after a fair amount of trial and error worked flawlessly. It had a crude computerised scoring system which back in the 90’s was absolute bleeding edge tech. Looking to claw some money back from this invention, I approached an events company. Which had a giant Scalextric track that they already took to events. After much lobbying I convinced them to try out my scoring system on their track during an event. To my amazement the begrudging events owner was not pleased with it. Although one of his staff members admitted they’d never seen the race run so smoothly and coherently.
Unforeseen Oppertuinity.
It was at this moment I realised my invention had just opened a small gap in the market, and I could beat this events company at their own game. So I spent the next 6 months building and designing my own giant 8 lane Scalextric track with integrated lap counting. From this I created the foundation of Miniracing.com which has now become the world leader in private and corporate Scalextric hire.
