[woodcote]

Gary, don't worry - we'll have all the coverage here from around midday on Monday... Until then - 4 days, 50 minutes and counting - it's all guesswork 

As for your awards - I don't think there's anyone in the world who can reliably predict how 2022 (or 2023) will pan out in terms of global manufacturing trends. However, Scalextric are getting much tighter in terms of production numbers. Warehouses full of unsold cars are a thing of the past. For any business, you want to recoup your investment as soon as possible - and if cars sell out, that's always good news... the knock-on effect is consumers learn they can't risk hanging around if they want a car, so new products fly off the shelves nice and quickly. And eBay sellers will have a punt and buy extra too, knowing they can inflate the prices. Shorter-run releases that sell out fast is what Fly are doing at the moment and seems to be working much better for them.

Fifty quid for a standard slot car (Carrera, Scalextric, SCX) means their new products have to be very desirable. Manufacturers can afford the occasional lemon, but not many. Looking through the Carrera list for 2022, there are one or two 'must-have' cars - the Mercedes really stands out - but most are re-liveries. Some of those will be popular with home racing groups and collectors of certain types of car, but I do wonder if the 25% price rise will leave a lot of stock unsold. We'll have to see on Monday if Scalextric have been brave and focussed on new tooling that really excites their broad consumer base of families, collectors, home racers and TV & Movie fans.