February 22, 2009
 NINCO Lamborghini Gallardo ASP Rally 08' Review By Shawn Smith Appearance:  If Batman were going to own a Lamborghini race car this Gallardo 'Supaloc' ASP Rally 08' would likely be the one. Dark and sinister was my first reaction with its gloss black body, black wheels and sharp red trim (my camera hates red for some reason and it always looks orange... I assure you its bright red). Mean looking machine that it is we need to point out a few things as a number of changes have taken place since Harry first took a look at the Lamborghini Gallardo 'Flatex' back in May 2008 and while the most important changes are mechanical I have a few visual items I'd like to touch on as well.  Above is an image of the 1:1 prototype that inspired the NINCO slot car version of the real thing. Generally speaking NINCO has done a good job on matching the look of the paint job and I have only a couple 'detail' items to pick on.  The first being the difference in the rear wing design. NINCO's version, the same rear wing used on the Flatex car is 'ginormous' compared to the wing used on the real car. The true wing, being smaller, rounded in design, lacking end plates and a sponsor logo is considerably different from the huge, flat, end plate fitted wing with the Supaloc logo as modeled by NINCO.  The next difference is the wheels. While black and decorated with a Supaloc logo on one spoke the wheels are completely wrong being NINCO's six-spoke, four-lug Speedline wheels and not the black painted five-spoke Gallardo wheels as shown on the prototype.  The rest of the car looks great... it sits quite a bit lower to the track than the real car appears on the road but for magnet racers you'll reap the rewards later.  Being a 'rally' model it has to come with a driver and co-pilot and as is standard practice with NINCO the navigator comes holding the infamous printed turn-by-turn directions. While not pictured the dash also has a large green painted faux digital dash and a silver painted roll cage, that ironically sits lower in the car than the driver's heads, completes the interior bits and pieces.  The engine detail and engine bay cover is very cool. It looks like a photo etched part but from what I can tell this is a printed design on a clear panel. Either way I like the look.  Besides decoration the back of the car is the exact same as the one we reviewed in May. The printed mesh/carbon fiber screens, center mounted dual exhaust pipes and the giant rear wing provide the visual excitement when looking at the car from behind.  Performance:  Now its time to see the major difference in the mechanical department. Here, looking at the bottom, the major difference between this car and the Flatex version Harry tested comes down to 'pink vs yellow'.  When Harry did his review on the Flatext Gallardo several of us all said 'why an NC-6?' A GT class car, in the same arena as the NINCO Supra, NSX, Porsche 997, Mosler, every McLaren F1 GTR since at least 2005, all came fitted with an NC5 so to see the Lamborghini show up with an NC6 wasn't what a lot of us expected. Seems NINCO agreed with the masses as they have since decided to go with the NC5 after all and that makes guys like me very happy.  What doesn't make me happy? When an NC5, or any other motor for that matter, doesn't run when I set it on the track and in this case one of the cars other new features was the reason. I figured it was only a matter of time before the first example of problems with the new press on motor wires would show itself. As you can see the lack of clearance, even with the designed angle-winder motor position to the body, has caused one of the press on fittings to be knocked off during assembly.  Upon trying to re-attach the wire the fitting itself was loose and with little more than looking at it the wire fell right back off. The fix was to crimp the fitting flatter using a pair of needle nose pliers, before and after reattaching, then bending the fitting down and in a little more to avoid more contact with the body.  Motor connections secured I turned my attention to the gearing as rotating the axle by hand the fit felt tight. Popping the motor out I used my NINCO gear press to move the pinion back ever so slightly and putting everything back together my mesh was more free and the gearing felt much less tight.  Before popping the motor back in I noticed a lack of bracing in the chassis. Some have blamed this for allowing too much flex for racing and I know on other models NINCO has made changes to brace their chassis' a little differently.  On track performance was strong on my plastic track. The low ride height of the car makes the magnet feel strong on NINCO track and on my other track it felt well stuck down even still. Lap times quickly showed the cars magnet stability as the average per lap range hovered around the 5.4 to 5.5 range although it did crack off a couple 5.3-something laps with a fast lap of the test being a 5.364. Pretty nice time considering the 'lightened' LeyJun Mosler had a fastest overall lap of 5.144 even with all of its fancy racing bits and pieces. Acceleration was brisk and the car slowed quickly allowing deep dives in to the corners with confidence and strong drives out thanks to the NC5's power.  On the routed oval I had to turn the power down a little as the motor easily got the rear tires chattering and I also had to try and not wait as late to brake as I was doing on the magnet track. The Lamborghini was smooth for the most part and the car felt nicely balanced and stable if not over driven. The Final Thoughts:  Ok... so the short and sweet of it is that the newest NINCO Lamborghini Gallardo ASP Rally is a pretty cool looking car in its almost sinister looking black finish. I have to ding NINCO a little on the wing and wheel choice as quite frankly its the cheap and easy way out instead of taking the effort to model a car correctly. As many will likely not care though the car still looks good and its one of the fastest stock magnet NINCO's I've tested, running just a couple tenths off of cars like the 'lightened' LeyJun Mosler with its lexan chassis and new and improved tire compound. So if you're a fan of NINCO angle-winder, NC5 powered cars add this one to the list of cars you'll want to check out. Thanks to Model Rectifier (MRC) for providing the NINCO Lamborghini Gallardo ASP Rally 08 for review. Please stop by the HomeRacingWorld.com Message Board to talk about this and all other models of slot cars. Happy Slotting! Shawn Smith - SJSlots Shawn@HomeRacingWorld.com Thanks Go To MRC For Sponsoring This Review!
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