What Cars to Use for Scalextric Birthday Parties

I only have one Boxster - they are getting hard to find. It seems pretty bullet proof and I know SS67 uses them for school fetes and suchlike and he swears by their robustness.

I run my digital track for kids with Ferrari F430's, Nissan GTRs, Porsche 997's and Lamborghini Gallardos - all the Super Resistant versions. They have suffered some heavy crashes but seem to have survived really well. Just make sure you take the spoilers off the 997's before you start.

As Ember suggested - turn down the power.

I run SSDC software and find on my track that if I set the power to around 60% the kids can make it all the way around my track on full throttle, without coming off anywhere except my two hairpins. This makes marshalling easier, it means the kids get their crashes but can also get a decent run between crashes.

I ran it for 5 kids recently aged between 4 and 7. One of them didn't "get" the variable throttle bit - despite his parents' best efforts to explain - he would have been off on every corner if I hadn't turned down the power. The rest of them were flying off the hairpins early on but got the hang of it and were producing some races with close finishes.

All of them were able to lane change right from the start (even the one that was using the throttle as an on-off switch)!

I get what you are driving at but it simply won't happen. I have SCX NASCARs and the locating pins (plastic lugs) that locate the body in the chassis wouldn't last 5 minutes with kids racing them.

The window surround pillars are too thin and will break after one or two pile-ups - they are simply not built for digital carnage.

They also handle terribly compared to the Scalextric Super Resistants. Yes the SCX are more fun for more experienced drivers and more satisfying to drive when you get it right BUT we are talking kids here and the newbie drivers treat throttles either like on/off switches or so gently you would think they were holding a teddy bear's paw.

Kids will not respect a detailed car more than a super resistant one. You can pick up a pair of new Scalextric F430 super resistants on the bay for £24 including postage (I got them for this price twice last month) and that is a far better bet than SCX NASCARs at £16 each. And with DPR chips you don't have to chip your spare cars, just swap a chip out from a broken one or swap in one spare chip.