The Big Rigs!

The Fly Mercedes-Benz Racing Truck

November 11, 2002 

If you are looking for something different for your home or club racing, the Fly GB Track racing trucks certainly offer it for you. As with their 1:1 counter-parts, nothing else comes close to how these beasts look, let alone how they perform.

My main attraction to these rigs has always been, and still continues to be the detail. They provide a challenging and fun driving experience mind you, but Fly really does a superb job in this department, at least in this series, and this new release is loaded with it! 

When this truck arrived here, we simply took the time to admire the work, with my teen-agers leading the way. Just about every small detail you could ask for in a slot car (truck?) is here. These trucks are really attractive in my opinion, and even newcomers to the Show-Me Speedway immediately just pick this model up and begin to admire it. I also must commend Fly for the quality control employed, at least on this effort.

The Tampo-markings were very well done, with all of them being clean and crisp. In addition, a smooth, even clear-coat sealed everything quite nicely. I honestly could not find a blemish, run or fade anywhere on our model, even the low edges of the model were clean and even. Once again, my pictures do not give this model its due justice, but you can see for yourself the amount of detail Fly has included.

However, make no mistake here, this model is meant to be raced, regardless if you have heard differently. Under the hood you find the new, stronger Fly racing motor. This motor is virtually identical to the Ninco NC-2 and has been with this series from the first model. If Fly didn’t make this truck to be raced, I imagine they would have just used a standard motor instead of this one.

Included as well are brash bushings and Fly’s standard bar magnet located directly behind the motor. As you can see, the chassis leaves you plenty of room to tune this truck to your personal style of driving. Wheels and tires are well done, and even with all that rubber meeting the road, his truck can, and will get sideways.

And this brings us to just how this truck performs on the track. Testing it on our 59 ½ foot Carrera track gave us quite a surprise indeed. We at first thought this truck would be prone to tipping, as our first release SISU truck had been, but it wasn’t.

This truck hugged the corners nicely, and even allowed a fair recovery window in a slide. In addition, if you are looking for a Fly product to have a smooth and quiet drive-train, this certainly qualifies. Braking and acceleration are crisp and responsive, and lap times on this truck were a surprise as well. We posted average lap times of 6.4 seconds according to our DS timer, which is almost a full second faster than the earlier trucks.

Of course, when this truck does happen to leave the slot, you have the possibility of breaking some of the smaller details. However, this can be said for ANY model that has small mirrors, wings, etc, which is exactly why we have chosen not to add any additional magnets in our model. I have added some lead weight and magnets in previous trucks, but have since removed the magnets and left the weight in place. Keeping these trucks at a slower pace helps prevent some of the damage that a faster crash brings with it. We have pounded this truck a few times already (not me of course) and so far it has held up quite well.

If nothing else, this model brings the enthusiast just one more choice in an ever-growing line of 1/32^nd scale slot racing. We have found that running these trucks really adds some diversity to our somewhat organized races, and it should do the same for you. Fly has created a nicely detailed model that is as appealing to the driver in you as it is the eye.

Our model was smooth to operate, fun to drive, and needed no additional work to get it that way. This proves that it can be done, and hopefully future releases find the same result. Fly has done a great job on this model, and recommend it if your thinking of adding a pair to your stable.

Harry

As always, feel free to contact me at about this article or just the hobby in general. Better yet, drop into the Home Racing World message forums and let us hear from you.

Thanks go to Slot Car World for providing me with this model.