In spare time between air raids with his Vickers Wellington bomber during WWII, bomber pilot Ken Wallis built small model racing cars with electric motors, running on a slotted track constructed from a "black-out" board for his small hut at the Grimsby RAF base. This happened already in 1942, meaning that Ken Wallis effectively and practically invented slot car racing, and thus pre-dated Scalextrics 1957 "invention" by 15 years. Ken Wallis is today still going strong at 97 years of age, and also the track and the cars are in good shape.

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