SCX has jumped into Nascars and they've really come up big with a quartet of Nascars that feature lots of details.
I've put the Reeses Harvick car through it's paces:
Out of the box, onto the track, here we go...100 laps Carrera Fast & Furious set track with a 17' lap length. Flat 2.0 second fastest lap. Light magnet, can slide car out at will, very easy to overcook it in corners because of that. Also the typical SCX notchy-ness that the RX motors have, the car's gears/motor feels quite smooth. Maybe this has to do with the new motor...maybe it's just me. Suffice to say the mesh feels quite nice.
100 laps on the short track of the San Francisco Grand Prix wood track with a 22' lap length. The nose feels quite light and when the car deslots it's the nose that pops out rather than the tail slidiing out. At first the stock tires didn't stick all that well but after some sanding tires sticks much better. These tires don't seems to stick quite as well as other recent SCX cars I've reviewed. It may have something to do with the higher RPM motor...but then I've not yet had the chance to actually test the RPM on the new RX-42B.
The details and finish on this car (and all the Nascars BTW) is really fantastic. You never are quite sure how a slot company will reproduce the overall look of a specifically American car (like the Nascars). Details and proportions that are all familiar to Nascar fans might be overlooked when making a Nascar slot car by a company that's not "native" to Nascars. So what does all that mean? Well SCX got it right with these cars. The nose is wide and flat like Nascars, there are little things like the holes in the rear window for in-race trackbar adjustments.
Small supports on the back of the rear wing are there are done very well.
Another note about the motor and further thoughts on the wireless system. If you're not into the RX-42B it's easy enough to swap out with a Slot It kit and whatever long-shaft S-can Mabuchi you'd like to. Personally I like the SCX motors quite a bit, they work well on my short track, and the high torque motors allow you to use very tall gears and still retain the very good breaking characteristics the SCX RX series motors have. And should you decide to replace the gears in the rear end you can retain those really nice spherical bearing SCX uses on the Nascars (and other recent releases for that matter).
The pod that contains the new 19k rated motor is the tilting type motor pod.
The wireless system in this car doesn't have the usual configuration, mainly because there are obviously no lights. But under the front axle there is a small noise suppressor (I'm pretty sure that's what it is).
Thankfully SCX has decided to do a half-pan interior on this car rather than trying to shoe-horn a full interior into the car. And there's Kevin himself...
Some photos of the Dodge and Ford.
Now next I'm going to mention some things that fall into the catagory of "what you could do if you wanted to".
The body has 3 "bump-stops" on the bottom of that half pan interior. They push down on the front of the motor and the rear axles. The hold the body away from the chassis a bit and also prevent the rear axle from moving as freely as it should.
See the space between the chassis and bottom of the body? That's a gap made because the front of the chassis is screwed down and the rear body screw is out. In the stock form, the chassis is held down tightly across these 3 posts, that tension can't be good for the ability of the pod to move...so let's get rid of that shall we?
After you cut down (or remove entirely) the posts the axle can move freely, and the chassis now fits inside the body rather than being pushed away by the posts. The rear tires do rub just a bit now but you can get rid of that with a small amount of shaving the inside of the fenders (which won't be visible from the outside) or sanding just a bit on the corners of the tires.
I'd suggest you do this to these Nascars since they're supposed to sit just a bit lower than they do out of the box from SCX.
Aside from my little modification to this car, there's nothing to keep anyone from enjoying these cars as they are. They match up perfectly and combined with "other manufacturer's" recent Nascar releases any Nascar fan should be able to make quite a fun field of cars to race...that is with one notable car not yet made. Someone's gotta release the "Jr." car...Budweiser livery or not!
Let's go racin' boys!
DaveK
Publisher, Slot Car News
A note about the Reese's car. It's given away as a promotional item when you buy the SCX Nascar set...
