03/14/2011
 Racer, say the name and the first thing that comes to mind for many slot car enthusiasts is ‘money’. For those new to our hobby Racer has sort of established itself as the premier slot car manufacturer of miniature works of slotting art. Fine art comes with a price so yes Racer models are some of the most expensive slot cars you can buy however owning one brings with it an odd feeling of accomplishment, at least it does for me, as I’ve wanted one for years now however couldn’t stomach the thought of paying a sum of money for one car that could afford me four models from most other manufacturers. Like any car out there though deals can be found and when I found this model at the price of just two NINCO classics I had to pull the trigger! Now I’m sharing with all of you the artistry that is… Racer!  As their box reads Racer models are ‘pure passion’… Yes that sounds corny, I know, but in a way I fully believe that they are passionate about their work. These aren’t your run of the mill mass produced cars. These are scale, hand crafted and insanely detailed model cars that run. Most in our hobby limit slot cars to the title of ‘toy’ however Racer might disagree. Reading the side of the box Racer claims; ‘Not recommended for children under 14 years. This is not a toy’. And judging just from their packaging alone I think it shows the commitment they have to making ‘presentation’ just as important as function. This car arrived in the large cardboard box with giant colorful decals perfectly aligned and opening the box is like opening an ancient chest hoping to find treasure inside.  I could feel my breathing become more rapid, my palms began to feel clammy as I finally got the car out of the case and began admiring the detail. My attention went immediately to the paint and I can assure you this thing is as glossy and rich looking as anything slot car I have ever seen. Not a mark, not a spec of dust in the paint and the type of finish that makes you worried about leaving your own fingerprints on the car.  Then my attention went to the details. Now I’ve held Racer slot cars in my hands before, drove them at one of my local racer’s home track so I knew in advance that these come with lots of fine details. From the hand applied rear view mirror, the wiper and wiper arm, hood hinges, wind deflector and more I found myself looking at all of the small features from every angle imaginable.  Even inside the full cockpit there is so much to admire. Racer spared no detail here with textured floorboards, firewall, painted steering wheel with a tiny Ferrari logo in the center and even a laser cut metal gearbox pattern with a tiny shifter lever off to the right of the driver’s right arm. Even the buckle on the lap belt is a hand applied metal part. Look closely at the image above and you can hopefully make out little brown imitated leather straps holding down the rear engine cover.   See that silver stripe between the wheels and then back over the rear? Yes even here, at least the sides anyway, are actually metal details. Behind the rear wheels the chrome accent is sticker but I’m guessing they did this to make it easier to bend around the corners of the car and stay in place. The rear tail lights (below) have actual metal trim rings around them and the red grills are painted metal parts as well.   The rims have exquisite spoke detail with tiny spoke hubs between the separate pieces. Yes the aluminum wheels are solid behind the spokes but who cares with as gorgeous as these wheels are? Chrome knock offs finish out the rim detailing and, so far anyway, have remained firmly in place after hundreds of laps today.  In case the amazing detail work wasn’t good enough Racer Slot Cars teamed up with Slot It to produce the running bits and pieces for their cars. You’ll notice the famous Slot It motor pod, orange end bell motor and Slot It aluminum side winder gear in the image above. While this is fantastic news if you know how well Slot It cars run I did have one problem I’ll address here shortly…  Before we look more at the chassis I wanted to show the inside of the body. If this doesn’t speak to hand crafted resin I don’t know what does. Looking at the texture inside of the body really makes me appreciate the glassy smoothness of the exterior even more. As you can see the body is numbered and the bottom of the interior is unpainted resin and the entire body feels sturdy, heavy in fact.   Back to the chassis and there isn’t a ton here to tell you over what you already know. I can point out how the chassis has elongated holes where you place the screws to tighten down the body. This does allow a slight amount of forward and backward positioning of the body when you tighten everything down.  A brass pinion is fitted to turn the red metal spur gear and the rear axle spins inside of Slot It spherical bushings. The pod, of course, has three different positions in which you place the magnet, from Racer mine came just in front of the motor. And while all of that is well and good here is my one area of complaint. See that end of the motor shaft?  Well… they’re too long, rubbing the tire on both sides. Here on the gear side is doesn’t touch a lot but it does touch.  On the opposite side it was even worse and this needed to be taken care of right away. Think this won’t cause a problem think again. Even if I wanted to sand the tires I needed to gut off the ends of the shafts as they were damaging the tires just from a few seconds at about 6 volts.   All four wheels are metal set-screw wheels which makes it nice when you need to do things like true the front tires. Yes my front tires had a slight wobble to them as I spun them by hand so once my motor shafts were cut off I reinstalled everything with the front rims on the rear axle and I gave the rubber some sanding until I felt they would roll more smoothly.  After putting the wheels in the right places and giving the rears a little truing the next thing I did was pop out that pesky magnet and it got added to my increasing stack of unused artificial traction devices.  The guide used by Racer is a very nice and deep guide blade, zero slop in the mounting and the braids are nice although more stiff than I expected them to be. I may swap to a softer braid at some point but for now I left them stock, slightly shortened them and fattened them at the ends and off I went.  On the track it didn’t take long to know that I was never going to set a track record with this car but in honesty I knew that and I don’t care. The cars is heavy, weighing in at a whopping 108 grams, to compare a Slot It Alfa Romeo 33/3 tips the scale at only 70 grams, so the Racer’s weight alone slows it down. It’s even heavier than a Carrera Classic Dodge Charger which weighed on my scale at a healthy 106 grams. Then there is the matter of scale. Part of the weight comes from being perhaps not true 1/32 scale. By that I mean that the car is large, perhaps closer to 1/30 in scale, and you really see it next to the previously mentioned Slot It Alfa 33/3. Next to a model like the Monogram Ferrari 275 this Racer 330P dwarfs it side by side on the track. In my opinion I could care less, it’s absolutely gorgeous and I didn’t buy it to run with my Slot It Alfa nor the Monogram 275. I mention it only so that you know what to expect if you buy one, nothing more, so if a slightly larger size bothers you please take that in to consideration.  All said and done I couldn’t be more in love with a slot car. No it’s not blindingly quick but it is almost blindingly beautiful. Its one of those cars where you’d like to stick it inside of a glass case and keep it perfect, who would want to risk tearing up such a piece of hand crafted perfection but drive it I will. Its super smooth thanks to its weight and precision Slot It running gear, it’s beautiful on the track and well controllable, even with sanded stock tires and no magnet on my painted Carrera track. Short of fixing the motor shafts rubbing on the tires I can find not a single thing not to like about it and that’s perfect considering the cost that comes along with a Racer Slot Car. If you’ve ever wanted one of these, in my opinion, its well worth saving up for what would normally be three or four cars and instead get one of these masterfully hand produced cars. Art… in motion. 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 This was a non-sponsored review |