A little street racing anyone?

So you're all grown up now. You've got a full time job, maybe a wife, maybe even a kid... is a hot car is a thing of the past for you? Well with Carrera's Fast & Furious set you can relive all those nights racing light-to-light downtown.

The set is, of course, a movie tie-in product. I haven't seen the movie but that doesn't matter, this set has appeal that extends beyond a "quickly to DVD" movie. I decided to see if I could squeeze in a bit of racing one night after my son went to bed, so I grabbed the box and took the set up to the living room....

...for a little night racing.

9:15 EST-Danbury, Connecticut (USA, in case there was any confusion with another Danbury)...the track box opens on my new Fast & Furious set from Carrera USA.
9:16 EST-I scratch my head and figure I better find the directions to get this track together, race, and put away before I have to get some shut eye.
9:35 EST-getting the hang of the track clips, they hold the track together very, very tightly and snap in with a nice "positive" click.
10:04 EST-racing...one thing comes to mind immediately...I need to buy more track, lots more track. The Fast & Furious set comes with 17.39' of track. The cars fly around the track at a blinding pace and I wish I could turn the voltage down from the stock 14.8 volts.
10:15 EST...holy crap I'm dizzy... the cars whirl around at a blistering pace....man I need more track...
1:something....time to take the track apart and get some sleep.

Now if you'll take a look at the photos you'll see that I didn't pay attention to the warning on page 5 of the English version of the instructions which says," Note: Carpeting is not a suitable foundation on which to build the track because of static charging, formation of fluff and ready inflammability." Hmmm... I'll take my chances this evening.

The cars that come with the set are a green Mustang (reviewed a few months ago here on Slot Car News), and a flat grey/black Nissan 350 Z.

The Mustang:


The car has excellent lights, nice proportions, and is very smooth and fast on this set.

The Nissan 350Z:

Also it's bottle-fed! But since it's a very tiny bottle don't expect much boost out...

A small nitrous oxide bottle is front and center (or is it rear and center?) in the back window of the car, a really cool touch. The printing on this bottle, and the rest of the car BTW, is very, very nicely done.
The wheels on this car are nicely molded and look good with the body.

As has been noted on a few threads in the slot car community, this car is large, very large. I don't pretend to be a Nissan expert and while I don't actually own a set of calipers, even a cursory look at this car can tell you that it's...um, large. Having said that, does this mean you can't have fun with this car, does this mean anything to the average racer, hell no. I like the shape of the car, I like the aggresive, powerful look of the car.

And I want to applaud Carrera for doing something very right with this car... the driver is entirely appropriate!

The guy looks like someone that would drive this car. Short sleeved shirt and two hands firmly gripping the steering wheel with a look of terror on his face, probably hoping to not lose his pink-slip in a light-to-light drag.


Well, what can you say? The set is cool, and a great place to start for the young racer in your life...or maybe even YOU! These sets can be a great starting place to introduce a new generation to slotting, I hope the word gets out about these sets.

Thanks to Carrera USA without whom this and many other reviews would not be possible.

Dave K
Publisher, Slot Car News

Artin's "Thunder"ous set!

The price of everything is going up. You have less money to spend on extra stuff...in my house the first thing to go (as it should be) is spending on non essentials. Slot cars fall squarely into that catagory. But this Artin American Thunder set puts a set back within the reach of many slot racers.

I was piecing the track together (not as the directions or box show you to...I'm such a rebel! Or is it dork?) but trying to get the most track on the floor as I could as quickly as my grubby little fingers could. Soon the track stretched around the dining/living room. I was whizzing around the American Thunder track as fast as the brakeless little Stockers would let me. What fun! I was struck by the lighter, non-neo magnets and how much I preferred them to their more sticky cousins. They hold the car just enough but not too much that you get a false sense of magnetized security.


So the wifey came down the stairs and saw me in my slot car induced stupor...laughing as carrying on with the red Stocker (one of four...yes 4) and she sits down on the floor and grabs the controller and says she wants to race too! "Which one?" I ask..."the red one of course!" so ever the dutiful husband "the red one" is handed off. I grab the blue Stocker and now it's "Days of Danbury", we're racing side-by-side, laughing and trying to nerf the other into the fireplace. Damn this is entertaining! Yes folks, this one gets the wifey seal of approval.

I took the red car to Rob's today and did some hot laps on the East New York Raceway, the tires stuck like crazy as they did on my track. You'd want your aftermarket tires to stick this well, but in this car...no mod's needed. They work as well as tires should on my circle of tracks.

Can you put a price on fun? Well, yes you can. Did you spend twice the money on track that doesn't lay flat? Not fun. Does this power supply work well with the track? Yes, more than adequate. The surface grippy, but not overly so. The pieces fit well together, and come apart easily when you want to disassemble the track. And the slot around the edge of the track makes it easy to put in thin pieces of plastic or cardboard and make your own fences! Again, don't know if this was a thought in the design process but it's a way to keep costs down so who cares!

Sometimes it's about just having fun, not being a "serious" racer, actually it should always be about having fun... this set reminded me that fun is what it's about. I don't mean to overstate the issue of price the point is that the set is probably as inexpensive as sets should be, not everything has to cost tons of money to be worth it...and this set is worth it!

And none of this review would have been possible without the support, and of course, the track from Frank at Slot Car World/Artin North America.

A side note. If you'd like to know even more about this set, Harry at Home Racing World did a great review that goes into more detail about aspects of the set I only touched on.

Dave Kennedy
Publisher, Slot Car News