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.

As of 2013, Ken Wallis was still going strong at 97 years of age, and also the track and the cars are in good shape.


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