June 28, 2008
 SCX Audi and Mercedes DTM Tag-Team Review By Shawn Smith & Eric Cropper  Are you ready for a showdown? Every once in a while we get the chance to do a little 'tag team' approach to reviewing here at HomeRacingWorld.com and when two different SCX DTM's appeared at the front door we knew they had to be done together. Of course a review like this isn't without its surprises, and they tend to be a bit larger and more image heavy (sorry low bandwidth users), yet we're hopeful that when the motors are shut off the tire smoke clears you get a good feel for the fun that we've had... and these two beauties certainly did that. We'll look at the outsides then the insides and discuss a few issues a long the way. Let's fire them up and dent some bodywork! It's 'Dueling DTM' time! Appearance:  Eric: The Castrol Audi A4 is painted in that famous Castrol green with red and silver accents. It’s a real looker and finish overall was nicely done. There was the occasional bump where paint had build up or had a foreign object on the body at the time of the painting process. However, nothing the casual viewer would notice. The Audi’s body is recreated great and all the air splitters are done thinner than any of brand I’ve seen. Their thinness adds to the realism of a DTM vehicle, however, does mean you’ll end up losing bits and pieces of them during your racing escapes. (If you see how Shawn and I treat each other on the track…soon it might look like a street version A4) Shawn: The TrekStor AMG Mercedes C-Klasse comes painted in a basic 'Jager-orange' color that looks really good on the track and is something I'm not quite sure my camera captured well. The livery isn't all that 'active' on this car but seeing as how it is replicating the prototype I can hardly find fault in this and it does make for a very easy car to see on the track. Like Eric's Audi this Mercedes does have some dust that appears to have been trapped in the paint, primarily on the roof, yet the overall finish is very glossy and you won't see the dust unless specifically looking for it.  Eric: This is probably the best done side vent area I’ve seen on any DTM slot car. Look at the amount of depth SCX created in this area. You’ll see just how thin and detailed these molded pieces are later when the body is removed. The shot gives you a peek at the other small vent opens on the side of the A4 and the fuel caps located through the rear side window.  Shawn: The Mercedes also has aggresive vent work all over the entire car. Time will tell if the body work behind both front wheels will hold up to crashes however during our testing the cars did take some solid hits and happily everything remained in place. I love the front fender louver work over the front wheels on this car too. The smaller openings can't be easy to do without cracking the some plastic. Nice job SCX.  Eric: The front has that large grill with the world wide known Auto Union rings embossed upon it. This opening sucks some serious air threw it on the real deal. Got Fins? There’s a black one running across the entire front on the lower end of the front fascia. The grill is flanked on both sides by a pair of silver ones and there’s a bunch of air vents atop each fender. The various sponsor logos are dead on, clear and opaque in their finish.   Shawn: Looking at the front of the Mercedes the car has not one but two distinct grill openings, the one on top replicating that famous Mercedes chrome grill and the larger lower grill being part of the chassis and painted with a silver AMG logo. Pair's of black Cannard-style winglets frame the lower front of the body and a very cool laser cut metal hood emblem stands off the nose of the hood.  Eric: Limited items back here let you know you’re following an Audi Team car. There’s a triple-decker wing though the very top part of it is bent down onto the 2nd level. I assure you they are separate from one another. I love the fact that SCX made the Auto Union logos in relief on the body of the Audi. They could have just tampo printed them, but went the extra mile and created a great detail. Also, from this view you see the rear air splitters and openings to let the air travel through the body reducing drag and cooling the rear brakes on the real DTM Audi.  Eric: Again, expect to damage these rear splitters when bumping and banging on the track. In the real world DTM series bumping and banging will get you black flagged. Luckily, Shawn and I aren’t governed by the DTM rules or nobody would be running on the track after our first lap. The bottom fin on the passenger side was already damaged at the factory and painted when I removed it from the box. Not to worry though... after running it against Shawn in our test both sides are even again.  Shawn: Styling on the C-Klasse is similar to the Audi although there are differences. Here the Mercedes emblem is a tampo graphic and the rear wing design is actually different too and both are positioned on a trunk that looks like it actually could open.  Shawn: While still here looking at the rear it's important to note that I found what I feel is a slight design defect that affects the appearance of this AMG. Focusing on the bottom rear splitter there is a raised hump in the mold on the top center of the chassis and two box-like sections on either side that tuck in behind the rear fender openings. The problem here is that when you screw the chassis in the box-type ends press up on the orange lip below the trunk and it forces the outer edges of the chassis downward.  Shawn: The resulting issue is a gap that opens between the body and the chassis as the chassis ends up being warped slightly. Of course this is correctable if this bothers you, I would recommend notching the chassis section to avoid contact with the body in place of sanding that orange bumper section down, but you may have a residual gap anyway as the plastic of the chassis may retain that bending. Here too you might be able to heat it... if you're inclined to do that much work. As it stands I'm going to leave it alone as once we're done slamming these cars in to each other it will be lucky if this is the worst of its problems.  Eric: The bird in the sky view of the Audi is what I found more appealing than the Mercedes Shawn reviewed. The silver roof really is eye catching. The Audi Auto Union rings…I simply love them. This view gives you a better ideal of how true the DTM series is to their street based models. All the vents and fins on the lower parts of the Audi hide the fact that it started life as an Audi A4.   Eric: Peeking through the glass you get a glimpse of the half-pan interior which is standard in SCX releases. The driver is wearing a white racing suit, black gloves and is crowned with a two colored full helmet. There’s silver painted components and well done roll cage. The driver is held in his high-backed racing seat with painted seatbelt details too.  Shawn: While I don't have any real interior shots to show you the notable details are the silver roll cage, the orange suited driver with additionally detailed (blue and silver striping) helmet and other near by details such as a separatley applied wiper arm, side view mirrors and mid-window mounted fuel filler location add to detailing touches.  Eric: This Audi grips the track via a set standard low profile Dunlop tires wrapped around the standard DTM rims. These are very true to the real rides. The only differences in this department between the Audi and Merc is that the center caps of the Audi are painted black and more interestingly that the tire logo font is italicized while the Merc font is in a larger block-letter font. Again, SCX could have made them all the same, but they didn’t. These little details give two very similar cars their own character. Thumbs up SCX!!!   NOTE: Take the time to remove all the tires and inspect the rims for flashing from the molding process. The front of the Audi had a slight hop to it. After addressing the mild rim flashing the hop was eliminated. Eric: The tires themselves were smooth and pretty true. I did sand them a bit just for insuring a good contact patch and a little better grip from the newly exposed rubber surface.   Shawn: Lights can add some nice added realism to any car and here SCX does not let us down. Both cars come with very bright headlights with the Mercedes having a chrome housing that gives the effect that all four lights are shining. Both cars also benefit from tail lights as well and thankfully all lights stayed functional throughout our testing.   Shawn: Overall I think its safe to say that Eric and I really like the looks of these cars with their good detailing, shiny finishes, lights and well applied graphics. We're holding high hopes at this point that they will run well too. We'll crack them open first then we'll get to the racin'.  Performance:  Eric: Flipping the A4 on its side we are now getting to the bottom of things and a little closer to the best part of any review…track time. The body is held upon the chassis by 5 body screws referenced by the yellow arrows in the picture above. The red arrows point to the magnet pod screws. You can raise, lower, or completely remove the SCX magnet to suit your track and driving tastes. NOTE: The light blue arrow points towards the front axle slop when the car is resting on its side. It didn’t really seem to affect performance, but I will eventually shim it to center the axle and remove the majority of the side to side slop. You could also remove a rim on one side and shorten the axle to achieve this too. I just prefer the control of sanding a nylon washer down by hand until I get it just right.  Shawn: Five screws also grace the chassis of the AMG although here once again the AMG has a slight issue. Looking at the forward most screws in the front of this chassis it's quickly apparent that the Mercedes has less 'meat' around the screw holes than does the Audi. The Mercedes screw holes are precariously close to the edge of the chassis and much as I fear a crack developed from the hole to the edge of the chassis in the images above and below.  Eric: Now that the shells are removed we get to view the guts with a couple of new items hidden under the body. We find the SCX standard 'wireless' electrical system (love it or hate), the RX42 motor and gearing. However, the newer items to the SCX chassis setup are the axle bushings. The front are a light grey and clip in tightly to the chassis. The rear bushings are spherical and made of brass. These aid the travel of the motor pod that SCX added to their cars last year.     Eric: Remember me talking about the side vents? The 2 silver pieces below simply slide off the chassis. The front part is held in place by a body screw while the rear slips over a thin post molded into the chassis. Look at the effort SCX put into molding these 2 pieces. In my opinion they’re the crowned jewels of the entire body effort.  Eric: Below are shots of SCX’s self returning guide set up. The guide is spring loaded up and down, as well as, side to side. These help the guide stay in the groove and return from the turned position once the car hits the straights of your track. The guide itself has a double braid on each side that is actually a single piece of braid material. Again, the thought of more braid equals better contact to the rails.   Shawn: Looking again at the motor pod, 'pivot-system' if you prefer, it also houses the rectangular bar magnet which helps the cars grip on plastic track. The 'pivot' in both cars allowed for quite a bit of movement which can create some body contact issues due to the tight clearances between tire and body.    Shawn: Of course the motor pod is totally removable, unless of course you prefer to secure this pod as a couple of the racers I know do, but I could see this being an especially nice feature if you raced these cars frequently enough on a variety of tracks as you could keep multiple completed pods with you of different gear ratios and simply pop them in and out depending on your needs.  Track Time: Eric: These DTM’s really surprised Shawn and I. They had really good acceleration, braking, and a better top speed than we were expecting. The recently reviewed Renault Turbo was slow compared to these German bred beasts. They held the track very well until the rubber got dirty. They then started showing their tails just like most slot cars do with dirty tires.  Eric: The one thing they did have in common was the more we ran them the faster they would go. Lap after lap the times dropped. The Audi was actually running a bit 'less loose' than the Merc and Shawn backed off the magnet screws about a full turn to lower the mag just slightly and hopefully even out the lap times. Then the Merc started being a bit quicker than the Audi. So, we tweaked the Audi’s mag too until they almost ran dead even. A pair or more of these tuned just right will make for some tight racing fun.  Shawn: The fastest lap times of both cars were very close at the end of testing with the nod in speed likely being helped by the home track advantage. Running both cars on both lanes lap times on lane one (the inside lane) showed a 5.885 for the Audi and a 5.808 for the Merc. In lane two the times were 5.973 for the Mercedes just minimally besting the Audi again which turned in a 6.053. That's more than close enough for our liking and we spent countless laps banging doors through the chicanes and slapping body work exiting the usual corners.  **New Addition** Eric: I decided to test the SCX Audi against two other brand DTM cars I have in my stable. These cars were a Carrera and a Scalextric DTM Mercedes. I've been messing with track layouts for a 4 lane Sport track. I still had the last design setup on my basement floor. It's a 20 foot extended figure 8 with a hairpin at one end and a sweeping curve at the other end. The middle under the bridge also has a crazy chicane built into it. I used a standard Sport wall wart and controller. The timing was handled by a Sport Digital Lap Counter/Timer. CAR SETUP SCX Audi is box stock with sanded tires and the magnet lowered about a full turn of the screws. CARRERA Merc is box stock with Indy's on the rear and both magnets in place. The front magnet is in the rear position and the rear magnet at its out of the box height. SCALEXTRIC Merc is box stock with Indy's on the rear and the magnet in the out of the box position. So, with the Carrera and Scaley having Indy's instead of rubber and Carrera with 2 magnets instead of one it should be a blow out. Right? Well, you're wrong and so was I. They all handled very similar and held the track about the same. Though the SCX's rubber tires did break more than the others coming out of the turns. TIMES IN VERSUS MODETIMES IN VERSUS MODE SCX 4.3 Seconds Carrera 4.4 Seconds Scaley 4.1 Seconds  I think it's safe to say that on a medium sized track that all 3 brands could be tuned to hang with each other. Scaley does have the advantage and on a large track with a very long straight will be the winner in the top speed department. However, on small to medium tracks and more technical tracks I think all 3 would make for a pretty equal field. Having more choices for a racing series is always a good thing. NOTE: Things could change for the better or worse depending on what type of track you run on, the type of power supply you have and controllers you use. These are my findings with the factors outlined above. Your results may differ. The Final Verdict:  In case the good looks, working lights, improving detail and closely matched performance isn't enough one of the best features about these cars is the price tag. Quite a value when you can grab a pair of these for around the same price as one car from a few other brands. We had a ton of fun with these cars, which is what its supposed to be all about, and we walked away from the track saying things like 'We should get a few more of these' and 'I think now I may go and try one of their other models'. Neither of us have been large SCX racers, perhaps due to past experiences with older cars, but in the end we both agree that SCX has something very good working for them right now and you can only hope it stays that way. As always we'd like to thank SCX for sponsoring this review and if you have any questions you can feel free to contact us through our email addresses below. Shawn Smith - SJSlots shawn@homeracingworld.com Eric Cropper - legionofone ecropper@hotmail.com Thanks Go To SCX For Sponsoring This Review!
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