All race sets being produced today come with everything you need to begin racing. This includes track, cars, power supplies, and controllers, as well as an instruction sheet or booklet. The difference in price between sets is mostly due to the type of cars and the amount of track included. In addition, all but the least expensive come with accessory items that may include guard rail, track borders, overpass supports, and, in one case, an electronic lap counter. Some sets also include special track sections such as cross overs tracks and chicane "squeeze" sections. These add play value for children and additional challenge for some adult enthusiasts by creating no-passing zones, but many hobbyists discover that when two or more evenly matched cars and drivers are racing, passing is hard enough even without them. The special tracks tend to cause a lot of crashes and often are removed from the layout.

Scalextric Sport
If you intend to run only plastic chassis European-style home set cars or vintage and scratch builts made to the same general standards you will most likely want to go with Scalextric Sport track for its space-efficiency and versatility. The Scalextric Sport track system is decisively superior to other 1:32 scale track systems in these two respects. We offer a layout design service for our customers and have worked with all three of the track systems we sell. A great deal of experience has demonstrated overwhelmingly that Scalextric Sport offers far more layout options than the other two, particularly where serious space constraints are involved, and that even the most elaborate designs can be done much more quickly, compactly, and easily with Scalextric Sport. This is almost entirely due to Scalextric's more compact curve radii and to the fact that Scalextric offers a 1/5 or "short" straight and half-standard curves, something none of the others do. Yes, there is a tradeoff in track width, but years of direct experience demonstrate that in the vast majority of situations involving scale or near-scale 1:32 cars this makes far less real difference in the quality of racing than some people would have you believe.

With Scalextric Sport track there is essentially no layout you can think of that you can't build and be able to connect up that final track joint using some combination of available track sections. And, More importantly, Scalextric Sport lets you get more layout into a given space. You can get a 180-degree 4-lane turn (standards and outers) with borders into a 4-foot wide table with room to spare. With Ninco or Carrera track, you have to go with 4 1/2 or 5-foot-wide tables. Scalextric Sport track is also slightly more flexible than Ninco and has more ribs underneath to support the track surface This can be important if your track is in someplace like a daylight basement where it may be subjected to direct sunlight or any place where it may encounter excessive heat.

Scalextric cars are designed on the assumption that they are going to be run on tracks set up on the living room carpet, and are made to tolerate carpet fibers, cat hair, cookie crumbs, and other common household environmental hazards. That, plus a pair of silicone rear tires, gives them performance equal to or greater than that of Fly cars, which are generally acknowledged as the fastest out-of-the-box euroscale cars on the market. Scalextric cars also have an electrical system that allows the braided wire contacts that pick up power from the track to be changed quickly without tools. The braid wraps around the top of the guide and makes contact with two metal strips on the bottom of the chassis. To change the braid (the only maintenance procedure that needs to be done at all frequently), just snap out the guide and snap in a new one with braid already fitted.

Scalextric's power system uses a wall-mount transformer along with a rectifier incorporated into the terminal track, which Scalextric refers to as a "Power Base" The Scalextric Sport track and controllers are set up for dynamic brakes, as are Ninco and Carrera.

Ninco
The Ninco track is wider and has a wider, deeper slot that accepts a Jet Guide (the guide used almost universally on commercial raceway cars) with only minor trimming. We also found that Ninco's track surface works a lot better than Scalextric's with sponge tires, even without glue, which you absolutely do not want to use on modern flexible plastic track. The extra traction is purchased at the cost of higher tire wear.

The Ninco power packs can deliver enough amperage to run at least 16-D motors (using one pack per lane) and the design of the Ninco connection track gives you the ability to plug in two power packs to each lane. The track comes factory-wired for brakes, which is much more important with the really fast cars than with the euroscale cars. All Ninco connection straights also have a reversing switch.

Ninco race set cars come with NC-2 motors and Super magnets. Ninco cars are well made, reliable, and attractive, with good detail and realism. Many of them also have a high "fun factor". Even though they are not particularly fast they are enjoyable to drive because they can be driven "tail-out" through the corners and their modest power does not overwhelm their handling capabilities.

Carrera
Carrera offers sets and cars in both 1:32 and 1:24 scales and is the only currently active manufacturer to do so. Carrera track is the widest available and has the deepest slot, though the space requirements are somewhat greater than Ninco's. Carrera track is made of a more rigid and brittle styrene, rather than the flexible and highly resilient plastic used in Scalextric and Ninco track. As a result, it's a little smoother and less prone to warping than the other two, but is quite fragile by comparison. You don't want to set up a Carrera layout on the floor where it can be stepped on. If you assemble and disassemble your layout frequently, either to store it or change it, you will need to exercise great care in doing so, as the tabs holding the track together are fairly easy to break off. Also, you can't make banked curves using regular flat sections as you can with Scalextric and Ninco. However, Carrera makes banked curves in four radii, allowing up to a 8-lane banked turn. There is also a really clever overpass, included in some sets and also available as an add-on, consisting of two track sections with the necessary elevation changes molded in. Connected in various ways they can be used to make an overpass, a dip, or a series of undulations. Carrera track is the only one available today that requires separate clips to hold the track sections together, and that alone makes using Carrera track more labor-intensive.

Carrera uses two different power systems, a 14-volt one for its 1:32 scale sets and an 18-volt system for 1:24 scale. The transformers have a separate cable for each of the two lanes.The Carrera terminal tracks have separate circuits for the two lanes, which makes a separate power per lane upgrade as easy as plugging a transformer and a controller into each circuit. Most Carrera cars, and all the new ones have a polarity reversing switch built into the bottom of the chassis. Carrera offers a basic rheostat controller as found in the sets. While Carrera has some excellent features, it is not for young children and is definitely suited to the serious adult enthusiast who is going to set his track up on a table and not change it a lot. It's also for those who have lots of layout space.
 

Price, quality, and availability
Price-wise, there isn't too much difference, at least at present, among Scalextric, Ninco, and Carrera. They are all of good quality and components should last a long time, except as noted in regard to the breakability of Carrera track and the marginal wire size in Ninco connection straights. Scalextric and Carrera both have long records behind them. Ninco's long-term reliability has been as good as any in the time its track system has been on the market. All three have or are developing, solid distribution in the US and can be expected to remain available over the long term.
 

Power upgrades
All three manufacturers offer terminal tracks that allow you to connect a power pack separately to each lane. We recommend a separate independent power supply for each lane to provide enough power to ensure that what one car does can't affect the power the other cars get.

However, it is not true, as some people would like you to believe, that most enthusiasts replace the power systems on their Scalextric, Ninco, or Carrera tracks with systems using components from outside the slot car racing field, such as computer power supplies. Most of our customers do not want to do track wiring and all the power system modifications some sources insist are necessary. They want, at most, to get the best system they can by using plug-and-play stock components. They especially do not want to have to replace the entire power system.

The fact is that relatively few purchasers of 1:32 scale home tracks ever run cars that need more power than can be provided by separate power installations using standard Scalextric, or Ninco components. We were contacted a while back by a new hobbyist who had been advised by somebody he encountered through an internet bulletin board that he needed a 10 amp per lane power system that cost over $500 and would have required him to do extensive track wiring. We asked him what was the most amp-hungry car he ever expected to run on his track. It turned out that one Ninco power pack per lane would have been more than enough. He was relieved to discover that all that effort and expense weren't necessary.  His situation is typical of the overwhelming majority of those who take up the hobby.  Anyone considering a track power system upgrade should take the time to understand his or her true needs before spending a lot of money on expensive capacity that will never be needed.
 

Selecting cars
Carrera, Ninco and Scalextric cars are well made and reliable. If durability, as in crash damage resistance, is a major concern, then whatever make of set you buy, get one with sedans or sports cars, rather than Formula One cars, as the F-1 cars have wings and other appendages that are fairly fragile and won't stand up to a lot of hard crashing. This issue is especially important where the principal users of the cars will be children, for whom crashing is often a major part of the fun and the coordination needed to avoid crashes may not yet be fully developed.

Once you have bought your 1/32 scale set you will have a vast range of additional cars to choose from. All cars made by Scalextric, Ninco, Carrera, Fly, SCX, MRRC, Monogram,Spirit,Vanquish,Slot-it, and others, will run on any Scalextric, Ninco, Carrera,1:32 scale layout. Stronger magnet cars, such as Fly cars and Scalextric and Ninco cars equipped with strong aftermarket magnets, will need a power pack for each lane, as mentioned above, for best performance. At any time, there are usually around 250 to 300 different ready-to-run cars available.

Accessories
Ninco, Scalextric, and Carrera all offer accessory items that add to the fun of racing. Ninco offers an excellent electronic lap counter/ timer, the Pole Position, that comes with a pre-wired sensor track section. It does everything most home racers will ever need, and even has some fun little gimmicks, such as playing few notes of the race winner's national anthem. Ninco also has a very basic but reliable lap counter called the Sprint.

Scalextric also has an electronic lap counter/ timer that allows handicapping of races by programming each lane for a different number of laps.

All the manufacturers produce track borders to fit the various curves they offer, along with straight borders. Track borders are the first add-on accessory the hobbyist should buy, as they improve the quality of racing by allowing the car on the outside lane in a turn to slide out as much as the car on the inside lane. The higher-end sets in all the product lines come with borders for at least some of the turns.

Slot width and depth
It's worth spending some time to put the slot size issue in perspective. The track depth and width of the slot actually turns out to be of comparatively little consequence to the great majority of our customers. It generally comes into play among enthusiasts who want to run highly modified, scratch-built, commercial track-type, or vintage cars using guides wider and deeper than those typically found on home track RTR cars. For these people a plastic track system with slot dimensions approximating those of a routed track is a definite plus, and we usually steer those people toward Carrera or even recommend that they build a track from scratch. But The majority of our customers are not car builders or track builders. They just want to put scale model RTR cars on their plastic home track and race. Another big group of our customers enjoys the modeling aspects of the hobby but does not get into the corners of the performance envelope where commercial track guides are used.

"Hard" vs. "flexible" track
A question we are frequently asked is, "Why do I see so much praise on the internet for the more rigid and breakable styrene track systems, including Carrera, Artin, and the 60s track systems from Revell, Monogram, and others?"

The reader should understand that much of the praise for "hard plastic" track systems comes from a narrow perspective that doesn't represent or adequately address the real concerns of the vast majority of our customers and potential customers. It is almost entirely based on the perceived smoothness of the track. This certainly is a desirable feature but it's the issue of paramount importance only to a small fractions of enthusiasts. It's far from the most important considerations for the vast majority of our customers and potential customers. Advocates of these hard-plastic track systems are willing to overlook disadvantages that would render them unacceptable to many other hobbyists. Almost all the praise of hard track systems totally ignore several vital factors.

The majority of new set buyers are purchasing a track at least in part for children who will be playing with it unsupervised. This has enormous implications for the buyer's choice of a track system. In such situations, the track, cars, and other components will be subjected to the none-too-gentle touch of young hands that in many cases are neither careful nor coordinated. In short, kids are often rough on slot car tracks in ways that adult enthusiasts are not.

Believe it or not, we sell a huge proportion of our race sets to people who will set them up, at least initially, on the floor and will be disassembling them for storage after each use. In this kind of use, the track will get stepped on, particularly when the principal users of it are children, for whom racing can change in a minute to a squabble or a chase around the room in which the track is often stepped on or worse. Even adults, running for the phone, forget the track is there and step on it. Styrene track simply doesn't survive long in such situations. Furthermore, when mom tells Junior to pick up the track and put it away before he can have his ice cream, or Junior and his friends decide they want to change the layout several times in the course of an afternoon, the tabs that connect the track sections come in for a lot of none-too-careful handling. In such situations, which are far more common than the serious adult enthusiast's lovingly cared for permanent layout, the durability of flexible track trumps every other consideration.

One of the most common things we hear from customers is that at some time past they or their kids had either an HO set or one of the styrene 1:32 scale tracks and had endless problems with the track breaking, not staying together, and generally proving less than durable. When they see the resilience of the flexible track systems, that alone often makes the sale.

Hard track advocates seldom talk about these matters because they simply don't concern them--they never come up on their radar screen. Most hard-track advocates have permanent layouts on tables that do not get changed, moved, assembled and disassembled, or played with by unsupervised small children. Certainly their tracks are never placed anywhere they might be stepped on. These adult hobbyists make only the most modest of demands on their tracks' durability and can live with the fragility of hard track systems. For virtually everyone else, the polypropylene track systems, Scalextric Sport and Ninco, are a much better choice, at least to begin with. In the end, all we can really do is try to give you the pluses and minuses of the various track systems. After that, you have to make your own choice based on your specific set of needs and preferences. One general principle that many buyers find helpful is that the larger the race set is the better value per dollar it offers. This is because track is almost always less expensive as part of a race set than as separate pieces. If you know you are going to go on from your initial race set to a larger layout, you can expect to get better value by purchasing the largest set your budget will allow.

We hope we've given you the information you need to make your choice.