The Christmas before last (2005) Dawn bought me the Scalextric Challenger system, essentially an intelligent car that will learn any circuit, then you can race against it (I'd got the Scalextric track the Christmas before.) It sounded great, as I'd got pretty bored of racing myself!

Anyway, to cut what could be a rambling blog post short, that Christmas I failed to get it working, every corner it just flew off the track. Very frustrating.

Cut to this Easter and I've got it out again, 1 yr 4 months on. One thing the instructions say is the track and car tyres should be clean, and given that they weren't that clean up in Carlisle (roaming dog = dog hairs) I gave everything a clean, and hey presto, it worked!

What is really surprising is the difference the littlest bit of dirt on the track or tyres has on the Challenger car. It literally loses grip and flies off the track! After every 4 of 5 races cleaning the wheels on a bit of sticky tape gets rid of an unbelievable amount of dirt. And it is quite staggering the performance increase you get, simply put the cars grip again.

So, if you've suffered problems with the Scalextric Challenger car, or simply need to clean your track or tyres, here are my top tips:

  • Wipe the entire track with a damp cloth to clean it and get rid of any hidden grime.
  • Use a lint roller (a sticky roller usually used to get dog hairs and bits off clothes, you can get them from Wilkos) to clean the tyres (it is much easier than messing around with sticky tape.)
  • For the full effect use the lint roller on the track too!
  • And finally and most importantly of all, do this often to maintain your track and tyres in top condition, you really will get the best out of your Scalextric track if you do!

So with all that said to prove it works I filmed my Scalextric Challenger car going around my track; Challenger versus the Bat Mobile and Challenger going Solo, enjoy!