This is an article that breaks down our turbulent attempt to build the World’s Fastest Scalextric Car
Read on to find out how we finally managed to achieve it!
As a kid I had a scalextric set like this one and always wondered how fast the cars could go if pushed to their limits.
Scalextric cars usually top out at about 7-8 mph, but all the way back in 2008, a TV program called the Gadget Show set a an officially recognised speed record of 30.94 mph, which is pretty quick for one of these tiny 1/32 scale cars.
Here's a link to a video of their attempt.
So, our initial plan was simple: we would take a standard slot car and upgrade it with some off-the-shelf upgrades before testing it to see how far off the record we would be. This way we could start simple and then develop some more advanced cars later on.
How a slot car works
Slot cars are powered by small DC motors and guided along the track by small plastic guide vanes. Power is provided by the rails running alongside the groove in the track which is picked up by the cars metal contacts.
To control the cars, a hand controller is used to provide a variable voltage usually up to 12v. To speed up, you squeeze the trigger, and to slow down, you release it.
Going around a bend in the track at too high of a speed will cause a derail as we found out first hand several times.
Car 1 - Brushed Car
To start our Scalextric Land Speed Record program, we wanted to start simple.
We would begin by using off-the-shelf upgrade components ordered online to improve a standard Scalextric car and see how much performance it could gain.
We decided on a Mini for this car which might seem like a strange choice for a Land Speed Record car, but a scalextric mini is one of the most lightweight Scalextric cars available.
I've also had previous experience with slot car minis in a previous video you can find below.
We’d probably need to build a bigger track later to let this lower torque higher rpm motor get up to speed.
Car 2 - Brushless Car
Building our second car, we aimed for improvement, choosing a larger vehicle to accommodate a powerful motor. This time, we experimented with a high-performance brushless motor—commonly used in drones and model aircraft—for greater torque and speed
To do this, I’d need to make lots of custom parts, such as a motor mount to hold the motor to the chassis, and gearing taking the form of two separate gears, one on the motor and one on the drive shaft.
We started by using two gears with a 1:1 gear ratio, which ended up spinning the wheels so fast that the tyres simply wouldn’t stay on the wheels.
The car’s gear ratio left it unable to move on the track, similar to trying to start a real car in top gear. To fix this, we geared down the motor, increasing its force to get the car moving at the expense of wheel speed. The adjustment paid off, with the car reaching an impressive 18.8 mph, far surpassing our previous brushed motor car configuration.
Improving the track
We decided to hack a set of athletic training gates that that accurately measured the amount of time taken to go from one laser beam to another to two decimal points.
Laying these out in the workshop with a 6m timed section, we figured out the time we needed to beat which would be equivalent to the 30.94mph Guinness World Record we wanted to beat which was 0.43 seconds.
Improving the Brushless Car
Over the course of a week, I experimented with different gear ratios to see how they would affect the performance of our car on this new short test track, going faster and faster until something broke.
Eventually we settled on a gear ratio of 2:1 which was a good mid-ground between acceleration and top end speed.
For our land speed record attempt, we needed the longest track possible. We set up a stretch of straight track in the car park, hoping it wouldn’t be too bumpy.
However, the power supply couldn’t deliver enough power along the entire track, a problem we’d need to address later.
Despite this, the car clocked a fastest time of 0.51 seconds—just a tenth of a second off our target of 0.43, equivalent to the Guinness World Record speed of 30.94 mph, even on a less-than-ideal setup with underpowered 15v supply.
Car 3 - Rocket Powered
I came up with an idea for a third and final car that wouldn’t rely on an electric motor - Instead, we would replace the motor with a small rocket motor to propel the car along the track.
These rocket motors are intended for small model rockets that fly a couple of hundred feet into the air - so it should have more than enough thrust for this tiny car.
We would keep the car on the track with a strong magnet fitted to the chassis, and add more if they weren't enough.
With everything ready, we completed all three cars with modified body shells and bold custom paint jobs, featuring the iconic Bell X1 orange from previous high-speed Project Air builds.
Testing
Emma had done a bit of work on connecting track pieces together at set intervals to help with our voltage drop issues, and I was confident that this would help us to go much faster with the electric cars. This was done with some XT60 connectors and 14 gauge wire.
The one big snag in our plans, however, was that the night before, after applying to the record officially, we’d received a rulebook that stated that rocket cars were absolutely not allowed for this to be an official world record, so already we were effectively down to two cars.
Test 1 (Brushed)
Immediately, things started to go south as the car came off the track early into its first run.
A second attempt saw the car get further, but then disaster struck. With the power set to 15v, the car had leapt off the track, crashing spectacularly but, despite coming off the track at over 500 scale miles-per-hour, there was thankfully little damage to the main car.
After gluing the shell back together we could go for another run and this time the Mini did manage to get through the timed section to set benchmark, but it wasn’t exactly looking that fast.
At just over 19mph, the Mini had gone faster than before but was still miles off the 30.94mph record which was very disappointing.
Test 2 (Brushless)
I took it easy on my first run as I was quite concerned about this fragile car flying off the bumpy track, so gently opened the throttle on the controller.
The next try I gave it a bit more, but strangely, the car was slower this time.
On the third attempt, I opened the throttle to full and the car ripped down the track towards the gates.
After a devastating crash, the axle mounts had snapped clean off and this car was now effectively written off.
So, the brushless car had only gone 23.4mph… which was very disappointing.
Test 3 (Rocket Car)
I loaded a c-size rocket motor into the rear of the engine mount and installed the igniter which would be activated by the track, as tested earlier.
Despite this car being technically in violation of the rules, if the car stayed on the track with the powerful magnets, we could at least achieve an unofficial victory.
The centre of thrust had been far too high for this size of rocket engine, meaning that the rear end detached from the track resulting in the car turning into a very much out-of-control surface to air missile almost instantaneously.
Rebuild
We decided to keep working on the the brushless car, which had performed the best, and rebuild the track somewhere with a smoother surface than the Project Air workshop car park!
First off, its axle mounts had been too weak so I fixed these through gluing in some thicker plastic brackets that could take a hit.
Secondly, we needed a bit more power to comfortably be in with a chance of getting the record so I upgraded the motor to a more modern efficient motor designed for higher performance drones.
Thirdly, now I needed to go back through a gruelling process of testing gears to find the optimal ratio for the new motor.
After a couple of days of progress, I finally broke the 0.5 second barrier inside the short workshop test track. This meant the car was now accelerating to over 29 mph in just a few meters.
Second Attempt
But there was one final problem to solve - how to build a better track
What I needed was a big indoor sports hall or aircraft hangar, something with just enough space to accelerate that bit more to break the 30.94mph record we were now so close to.
So I headed to see friends at channel the British Model Flyers Association airfield in Buckminster who kindly found us some space inside their main hangar building - in here there was just about enough space to fit a 21m track.
After a couple of shakedown runs I decided to run the car without it’s body shell to remove weight. Now I could fully open the throttle and see what it had got.
I couldn’t quite believe it. We had actually done it, achieving an average speed of 32.66mph through the timing gates.
I decided to tightened up the wheels and try again.
Somehow on this second run we managed to get a speed of 33.55 mph with the car remaining in one piece which was an incredible result - 2.6mph faster the previous record which had stood for over 15 years.
If this car was full size it would have been travelling at just over 1073mph.
We’d got ourselves into the 1/32 scale history books and set a new Land Speed Record for Scalextric.
Conclusion
I think this car has got more in it on a longer track where time to accelerate to a maximum speed is possible.
And if you were wondering, there are definitely lots of other slot cars out there capable of speeds faster than our Scalextric car here but was a challenge to beat an official Guinness world record for a Scalextric car with a slightly different approach.
If you enjoyed this article, you should check out another on our article section of the website!
