[Top Down]

I know it's a big ask but is there a 'best go to' tyre manufacturer for racing 1/32 magless cars on a 100'+ Scalextric Sport club track?

NSR? Slot.It? An independent 'cottage industry' manufacturer? Others?

Apart from my one new car, an MSC Metro, I have a mixed bunch of second hand cars from Avant Slot, Carrera, Fly, GSlot, ScaleAuto, Scalextric, SCX, Monogram, MG Vanquish, Ninco and NSR. 
It looks as if every manufacturer has their own rim design too   - or do they?

I'd prefer UK availability, as personal import costs are getting silly.

[CMOTD]

There are much better tyres available than stock manufacturers' ones but compatibility is a huge issue so there is no one make fits all solution unless you are prepared to replace wheels and axles as well.

The default compromise is urethane tyres which are available from a number of cottage industry sources. They don't give quite as good a grip as Slot.It or NSR but are usually way better than stock ones and are available to fit the vast majority of manufacturers' rims. 

You may need to hunt around a bit but check out WaspSlot's range for starters. Ortmanns are also very good although currently unavailable due to the UK supplier's flood problems. There are many others but they are often located abroad and Paul Gage is probably the best known. Make sure that your club allows urethanes though, some are unnecessarily prejudiced against them.

[woodcote]

On Scalextric Sport track we like Paul Gage XPGs - he makes tyres to fit all the non-standard hubs (older Scalextric, Carrera, Fly, Revell/Monogram etc) plus the standard hubs (new Scalextric, Slot.it, NSR, Scaleauto, Avant Slot etc). The Slot.it P6 tyres also go well on Sport track and fit all the standard hubs. 

One of our racers (Mike D) has also made some soft compound urethanes for a range of Scalextric models and they are pretty popular and successful. Like the Paul Gage tyres, they will need truing a little.

Of course, these are for the rears. Horrible old hard tyres with some varnish work best on the fronts - or the Slot.it, NSR etc zero grip fronts.

[Scuderia_Turini]

I find that tyre fitment is the most frustrating aspect of the hobby !   

CMOTD's comment  "compatibility is a huge issue" sums it up.

For my needs, any Urethane type tyre will do.

I think this where Forums come in most handy, searching for related previous topics and "going to school on someone else's knowledge".

Leo

[Top Down]

Yes, I don't want to go to the expense of replacing all the rear wheels and would much prefer a single supplier of tyres, rather than having to hunt around all over the place for a pair here and another pair there. 

Might help setup too, having consistency across the tyres.

Plus import duties are bad and will only get worse thank to the 'B*****' word.

[CMOTD]

I have never found import duties to be a problem with tyres - they aren't charged for stuff under £15 so keep below that and it shouldn't be an issue. Paul Gage tyres come from Canada which is not in the EU as far as I know so the B word is irrelevant.

[dazee]

I have always found Supertires to offer a good range and very reasonable in price.  They perform well and they sell wheels too.  There is always some odd tire size I have trouble finding, so for those and others where I am too impatient to wait, I now make my own.  Not hard to do and can be rewarding.

[Top Down]

Looks like I'm going to be set up with a selection of Slot.it P6's and Urethane tyres.

[slotloco]

I don't race on Scalextric, so I am only blowing breeze, but I would have thought that the softer Slot.it rubbers
ie F22, N22 and N18 would be quite effective, and probably better than P6 

- They give decent grip, - choose your particular poison, and the N series are almost as simple to true as urethanes.
 The F22 gives excellent grip on plastic, but is a "dogs dump" to true.  Sloooooooow takes on new meaning.

I'd be interested to learn what some regular Scaley Sport users say about the idea above.

Top Down - Depending on which Scaleys you race, I would have thought that these days, MOST Scalex rims would roughly follow the convention that most alloy wheel makers use

eg and 8mm wide, 16mm rim will have a centre of 5 - 5,5mm wide, and shoulders stepped down about 1.1mm.
That sort of numbers allows some basic NSR and Slot.it and Sideways 19 x 10mm / 20 x 10mm tyres to fit most Scaley rims.
Same principle for the 17 x 10mm rims, with the centre being about 7mm wide, and the same 1.1mm step down to the shoulders.

[Top Down]

Ah, now that helps make sense of the dimensions I've seen quoted. Maybe I jumped too soon but I've ordered three different sizes of the Slot.it P6's from Pendle's and am in the process of ordering a 'sample pack' of Urethanes, up to eight different size sets to try out on my rather mixed bag of cars.

All were bought second hand apart from a new MSC Metro, which was on sale at said Pendle's. So, they range from an old F40 and 962 through to the newer BMW Z4 and Mercedes McLaren, as well as other slot car manufacturers cars that took my fancy. No logic in buying, just price and what caught my eye either body style, graphics or engineering-wise.