[CMOTD]

I don't regard pointing out a well known deficiency of Scalextric cars as "knocking," merely perfectly justified criticism of one particular aspect of their product. There are some good things about their cars but tyres are not one of them. My experience is radically different to yours regarding the BTCC cars in particular.

I have 4 of them and this is what happened when I fired up the Honda straight out of the box - it refused to stay on the track for a single lap! Wheelspin all down the straight and slithered off into the scenery at every bend. I gave it a quick sanding to remove the shiny top surface which improved things a bit and it just managed to stay on with a best time of 7.5 seconds on my wooden track.
 
I then replaced the rears with some brand new Slot.It F22s and within a couple of laps it was down to 5.8 Seconds without really pushing it. Nearly 2 seconds difference is ridiculous on a 50ft lap! This is on an absolutely box standard car with no preparation at all. The other three cars were just the same so they all had the rears replaced.
 
This use of inadequate tyres is not restricted to Scalextric, other major manufacturers' efforts are often similar but Scalextric is definitely the worst. Why do they do it? Do they think the magnet hides all deficiencies in their product? Would it really be that difficult or expensive to put some decent rubber on them?

A few years ago Scalextric went to some of the major clubs to discuss ways of improving their product. The top complaint was rubbish tyres and the fact that they used non standard sizes so fitting after market ones was complicated and required axle/wheel replacement. Their response was to fit Slot.It compatible wheels thus admitting that their own tyres were inferior.

It should not be necessary for the normal, non enthusiast, buyer to learn the dark arts of tyre prep to stop a £40 car from falling off the track at every bend. It should also not be necessary to fit after market tyres just to get the thing to run properly. If Slot.It, NSR etc can make tyres that work fine without treatment then why can't Scalextric? To be fair Carrera and SCX tyres are not particularly great either but nowhere near as bad as these.
 
It didn't use to be like this - 70s Scalextric F1 cars had more than adequate grip without magnets and I have some with original tyres that grip perfectly well on my wood track more than 40 years later!