Epic portable Scalextric track layout!

It started out as a challenge from the Shadow Foam community to come up with a big Scalextric project. We're always keen to test new use cases for our products. Bring on months of collecting various Scalextric and vintage Scalextric kit and slot cars with which to do it. Then when we had all the gear, we needed the idea. So we decided to come up with a giant portable Scalextric track! Of course when you have a super-sized track layout like that there’s only one thing to do… and that’s go racing. And so the fun began…!

Making Scalextric track layouts portable

As luck would have it, we were gifted some rolling tables from a neighbour having a clear out. This made the perfect base on to which to sit our protective but impactful Shadow Foam scenics to hold the track. On to the tables we sat a large sheet of 5mm Correx to act as a flat surface. Then came the foam. We created the foam base from 3 sections of 30mm foam pieced together. We then added a 70mm buffer around the edge to protect cars from bouncing off the table in crashes. If you are a vintage Scalextric collector or racer, or are just as bad at racing as us, then this could be a really useful feature!

The set up and testing of the track obviously took a while and then came the job of cutting it into the foam. We also created lots of neat little tricks like hiding the cables under folds of foam. Also positioning cars which weren’t in use helped it look really cool too. It took a full 8 hour day for a couple of people to create this from scratch but if you’re an enthusiast or collector it will be time well spent!

Make it personal

The way we layered the foam when creating the track layouts meant that we were able to personalise it for our use. So by using our red base foam on one half we could cut our logo into it to great effect. Then doing the same with blue under black on the opposite side, we could re-create the Scalextric logo. Green foam was used for the track surround which gave the effect of grass, whilst the black buffer complemented the colour of the track, giving it a slick racing vibe.

Vintage Scalextric racing by relative newbies

Once the set up was complete, it was time to put it to the test. And so the inaugural Shadow Foam Grand Prix got underway! As we rolled the portable unit outside, we unsurprisingly attracted a lot of attention. What was originally set to be a bit of Scalextric racing fun for the team suddenly became much bigger! Before we knew it, it was a Grand Prix including lots of neighbours, passers by and visitors too. Well more a time trial actually. We decided that it was going to be the fastest three laps would win. Boss Jonathan even threw in a grand prize of a £100 Amazon voucher. As you might imagine this made everyone get ultra competitive about it!

We created a Top Gear style leaderboard for the times, and our official timekeeper, equipped with stopwatch kept score. As you might expect, some dirty tactics were often afoot! The team’s Scalextric racing attempts were sabotaged by Jona’s police car antics. This regularly sent our slot cars flying and scuppered many attempts for the fastest lap times. A benefit of using the Shadow Foam buffer around the perimeter of your Scalextric track layouts is that it catches a lot of the fall-out from the crashes! What’s more, when you come off track as often as some of us do, it lets you get back racing quickly!

In her slot car racing debut our Office Manager thrashed her hubby and, annoyingly for Jonathan, topped the leaderboard most of the way. Sadly though Jess was knocked off the top spot by our Creative Manager, Nathan right at the end. He took the big prize with an impressive time of 23.93 seconds.

Packing the track and slot cars away into storage

We couldn’t bring ourselves to sling all the cars we’d collected back into the old plastic box we originally collected them in. So we decided to make a suitably impressive storage solution to organise, protect and do these beauties real justice. Any real vintage Scalextric collectors will know how expensive these cars can become. So it’s a great way to look after them, and also looks really cool!

We took a nice portable Clarke tool chest with an opening lid and sliding drawers and turned it into something really quite special. This as really simple to do using our Shadow Foam inserts and spending a little time planning. If you want to protect, organise or make your collections transportable, this is the ideal way to do it.