Scalextric My First Scalextric Set

With me being the mother of the only grandson on either sides of the family, all of the men have been waiting until my son Connor is of age ………… for the scalextric!!!

It was his third birthday at the beginning of January, so with it being so close to Christmas was at a bit of a loss as what to purchase for him.

I had seen "my first scalextric" advertised previously, but had not took much notice, thinking Con was a little too young for it.

My mother on the other hand had already decided upon this as his main present, (spurred on, may I add, by my dad!)

~~~~~~ THE CONTENTS ~~~~~~

This set comes in rather an impressively large box, I have to say mostly wasted packaging, as when emptied from the internal plastic tray, probably only takes up half the box.

The set has 9 track pieces, all labelled with letters, A,B,C,D and E, for ease of assembly.

The track pieces clip together, very much like how you clip together laminate flooring, you do have to be careful however, due to the fact each part of the track has thin conductor wires running through them to power the cars.

Once the track has been put together, it forms a figure of eight design, there is also 2 bridge track supports included to lift the top part of the track off the lower part, (obviously!), these have to clipped on the underside, just above the control box, again very easily.

Also included in the set are 6 clip on crash barriers, these hook under the track on the top and tail of the track, these are again easy to put on, but be warned do come off very easily, so have to keep being replaced during a race, which does get a tad annoying!

Finally there are two cars and the corresponding hand controls, one in yellow and one in red.

This set is also mains controlled, I have to be truthful, I don't know if that is normal or not, I couldn't get near my brothers when we were kids, due to the high number of male relations fighting for a go, so don't really recall!
The transformer is a specific toy transformer, and can only be used with this particular set.

~~~~~~ SET UP ~~~~~~

The set up is again easy…… this is so my sort of toy!!!

On the track piece directly under the cross over there is a control box, there is a plug in place for the transformer, check!

A plug in place for the red control with a number "1", in red, check!
And finally a plug in place for the yellow control with a number "2", check!

If the track is working and the power is on, a little red light will illuminate on the control box, check!!

The cars must have the wires on the base of them splayed out, to make sure there is a good contact between them and the wire conductors on the track, you then place the little plastic "fin", on the base of the car into the groove on the track, (making sure the colour of the cars, marries up to the colour of the track!), then GOOOO!!

~~~~~~ THE CONTROLS ~~~~~~

The controls have three settings……. Start, speed up and my son's particular favourite, go so bloody fast, the car flies of the track and under the settee!! (my husband is getting to the, "I will smash the bloody thing up if you don't pack that in!"), he has probably fished it from under the settee ten times already this morning!!

You can control the speed of the car, by the pressure you use on the control button, the harder you squeeze, the faster you go……… please no rude comments!!

~~~~~ NOW PLAY! ~~~~~~

This is very entertaining, and a lot of fun for my son and my 6 year old daughter, it is however aim at three year olds onwards, so don't expect amazing car tricks or loop the loops, it is a standard figure of eight race track, good fun though!!

You can play this on your own, there does not have to be both cars on the track for it to work, it is much better when there's a race on the go, never realised how competitive my kids are!!

~~~~~~ CAR MAINTENANCE ~~~~~~
The cars and the track do have to be occasionally maintained.

The cars, as I mentioned previously, have small wires on the base, they do eventually have to be replaced, this is very easily done by removing the chassis on the underside of the car and replacing each individual one. You get a pack of replacement wires in the set for this purpose.

With the track it is just a case of cleaning any bits of carpet, dust or in our case crisps, from the grooves that hold the cars onto the track, this can be done with a non- linting cloth and a small clean paintbrush.

~~~~~~ SAFETY FEATURES AND WARRANTYS ~~~~~~

The transformer for the track has a cut - out function, and will automatically turn the unit off, in-case of a short circuit.

As with all purchases the warranty is at the discretion of the shop it was purchased from, this set has an additional warranty from Hornby themselves, giving you a six months warranty on any of their products.

~~~~~~ PRICE AND AVAILABILITY ~~~~~~

This set cost my mum £30.00, from Woolworths, not a bad price to my way of thinking, especially seeing how much enjoyment has been had from it.

For more information on this and many other products in their rang visit -

www.scalextric.com

Thanks for reading!