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It's Friday night and I've had a few pints. I'm gripped by the urge to play The Chain at maximum volume and race scalextric cars around the front room.
What's the thing to go and buy if you want yards and yards of track and to race 4 cars at once without breaking the bank? No problem picking gear up second hand off eBay, but I've not got a clue to start. Are all the cars the same?
There are the smaller micro sets that allow you to have lots of track in a small space.
You can get a digital version of the full size which allows you to switch lanes.
Ooh, do they still do a Goodwood Chicane? My Scalextric was in the era of Vanwalls, AM DBRs and Lister Jags.
After that I got into proper slot car racing. Scratch built track, polyurethane paint, tyre goop. Still have my car somewhere - a McLaren with floating body mounts, transverse motor, etc.
Scalextric and cheap just don't go hand in hand, even 2nd hand. I'd love a huge set but the mrs won't have it coz she knows it'll be left out on the dining room floor.
Cheapest way to get lots of track is to look on ebay for a Le Mans set local to you, got mine for £20! Then you spend a fortune on cars, my favourite is a pug 307cc wrc with mud splatter down the side
Old scalextrix track new scx cars cheap from tkmax did it for me crankbrat my brother his boyfriend and my father in law best Xmas so far . new cars don't like the old banked corners though .
My brother used to collect Scalextric cars and had about 400 until he sold them to pay for central heating. I'd have just put a jumper on.
This was before the days of ebay, so I think he just got them through adverts in the local papers.
He'd usually buy a complete set because it contained a car he wanted, then end up with loads of surplus track.
Slowoldman, I did that as well. Clear acetate bodies, painted on the inside, mounted on scratch built chassis.
I used to wind my own motors as well, filling the armatures with melted araldite over my mums gas cooker, then balancing them on two razor blades. 🙂
Wish I had kept mine 🙁
Still got my Mini Cooper 300 set with a few extra bits of track. It's going to be re-introduced soon as he boy is old enough!
I have an old box from years ago, magnets under the cars, but you can still slide them round corners, great. Add more track from ebuy. I now have a daughter and she wants to play with it 🙂 win win
Ebay - do an advanced search for 10 / 25 miles collection only for bulky sets should keep the cost down
Bought 6 boxes of micro scalextrix off ebay a couple of years ago for a friends son (honestly). Cost me about 50 quid. I set it up in an attic and worked out that we had approx a miles worth of track if you scaled things up!
Problem is that the power supply wasn't meant for a scale mile of track, so the cars ran really sluggishly, and conked out about 50% of the time 🙁
Theres always miles of track on gumtree.
Scalextric eh?
This has become something of an addiction for me over the last couple of years!
My method to keep it cheap(ish).
1. Analogue over digital.
2. Buy "classic" track off ebay.
3. But a new powerbase, throttles and transformer. Get two transformers if you have a long track. Ebay is your friend.
4. Cars. NEVER PAY FULL PRICE! Look for deals there are loads out there. SCX and Carerra (with a bit of sanding around the guide plate)cars run very well on scalextric track and can be cheaper.
5. Don't buy Auto Art cars. There is a reason why they are so cheap.
http://www.pendleslotracing.co.uk/
http://www.goldstarstockists.net/live/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=scx&sort=2a&page=1
http://www.hedleyshobbies.com/
TK Max and Tesco occasionally shift cars at a good price. Got this the other week for about £20. [IMG] 
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This forum http://www.slotforum.com/forums/index.php?showforum=6 is a bit dry, but like us as soon as they sniff a bargain they post a thread about it.