Let’s make tracks [Part 3]

How long does it take to build a track like yours?

I knew you were going to ask me that [laughs]. If you’re doing it full time, (obviously it will take longer if it’s evenings only,) about two weeks. Maybe a day to build the sub-frame; don’t forget I’m a carpenter by trade, then another day to drop the pre-routed [slots cut out via CNC] boards on top and line them up. A day to paint it and then it’s the worst part, putting down the copper tape. That’s horrible, really, really tedious [laughs], which could be six or seven of you sharing the pain in an evening. After all the basic build is in place, you then have to wire up the DS timing system and everything.

What’s DS?

DS Racing Products is a Spanish company who are part of a large auto racing group. Their Slot Car timing system is widely recognised as one of the best in the world. They are really serious about Slot Car Racing in Spain; it’s extremely popular out there.

And DS is what you have here at Bolwextric?

Yeah, it has an infrared start/stop timing system, which is hooked up to a computer and displays live timing on the TV screen in the corner. It goes down to about 1/10,000th of a second accuracy.

Wow, I suppose the smaller the vehicle, the smaller the margin to be measured?

In the twenty years of being here, I’ve only seen a dead heat once [laughs].

Is there a record for the fastest time on this track?

I think Peter Przybycin officially holds the lap record at about 9.3 seconds. The average speed is around 12.5/13.0 seconds. There are lots of variables that can affect speed though. The temperature of the track, how clean it is etc. If you’re doing a nine-hour endurance race, the track really ‘rubbers up’ and the track times really drop. You can take 2.5 seconds off a lap during that time.

Is six lanes a standard?

No. You have rally events which are one lane. Most home tracks are two lanes, although there are multi-lane sets available. A lot of clubs use four lanes, but I wanted to allow for more variation in driving skills. With more cars, there can be a sort of mini competition between equal-skill level racers all within the same race.

I guess there are tactics which come into play?

I don’t know if you noticed we have ‘crash and burn’ rules. If you come off the track you’re removed from the race. So it affects your decision on how much risk to take versus potential points to be gained. We follow normal Formula One [F1] racing rules regarding how a driver wins. The first driver, and therefore the fastest, over the finish line after a set number of laps is the winner.

You mentioned earlier that Bolwextric was originally a business name not just the club

Before COVID killed it all off, I used to do corporate events and kids’ birthday parties here. For nearly twenty years I used to make as much money on a Saturday as I would for a whole week as a carpenter. The setup that you see now was a lot different back then. What is currently a glorified storage area was used as an area for another, smaller, track for the kids to race on. We also had a train set running.

How big were the parties?

Most of the time I would have eleven kids turn up, and depending on what age group they were, they would have an hour and a half to two hours of racing. It would be a fifteen-minute warm-up race, a quick refreshment break, and then back on the track for forty-five minutes to an hour for a proper championship. We would award all the trophies on the podium at the end, then they would finish up with all their birthday food.

I used to turn the room ‘lights turned off’ and drive the police cars around with all the flashing lights, and model railways with all their lights on. The kids would go mad for it; they absolutely loved it. I had youngsters that came for their seventh or eighth birthday party and I probably did their twenty-first as well. Every year without fail they would come here for their birthday party. Their parents would say

“What do you want to do for your birthday party this year?”


“Can I go to Bolwextric?”


“Don’t you want to do something else?”


“No.“

Was it just kids’ parties that you held here?

I had adult groups as well, some from well-known local businesses. Others that were just groups of friends looking for something different for a celebration or night out. Over twenty years I built up quite a large clientele. At Christmas I’d have the likes of IBM accounts department, TVR owners club and every year without fail would be the Rotary Club, The Round Table Club, and Scout Groups. Some months I could do twenty-five parties. When it came to the adult parties, you could have twenty-plus people in here. I had a good deal with Horndean takeaway pizza to deliver at halftime [laughs]

Now that the lockdowns are over, would you consider going back to doing the parties again?

No. Much too stressful. I enjoyed it at the time, but I don’t think I could deal with it now.

Are there any celebrities who are known to be Slot Car enthusiasts?

For big names, it’s known that Elvis Presley was into Slot Car racing for a short time and had a room purpose-built to house a track, but when he lost interest it was turned in a trophy room. The Beatles helped raise awareness when they were photographed by Curt Gunther racing during their 1964 tour. Also, Ross Brawn, the former Ferrari F1 team principal was a keen slot car builder and racer.

Do you have any favourite cars?

Yeah, I like the GT class, that’s my favourite.

Is there such a thing as a rare or collector’s Slot Car?

Definitely, there are quite a few. Bugatti and Auto Union are some big names that come to mind. Paul [Atkins], one of the Wednesday night club members has a Bugatti that he was offered £4,000 for a while back. Paul was featured on Michael Portillo’s BBC TV series ‘Great Train Journey’ when they did a piece about the history of Scalextric. There’s a short clip available on YouTube.

So I’ll end with the Magic Wand question. If time, money and resources were no object, how do you see the future of the club?

I’d like to improve the facilities and get better lighting. What I’d really like would be to have some rally circuits in here again for a bit of variation. We used to do oval racing as well, but it never really took off. It was very popular about fifteen or twenty years ago. Farnham was big on it. If you went to one of their club nights, they would often have three oval tracks running, copying the old-style Formula One stock car racing. It wasn’t unusual to get forty to fifty people turn up to race.

Thanks very much for your time Tony, what’s the best way for potential members to get in touch with the club?