Posted by John on
November 3, 2008
Ok, here are some pics of the pool table layout I had up for the last couple of weeks.
It was a combination of the original Carrera Go Police Chase set that I bought along with the Carrera Go Nascar set I picked up at Toys R Us a couple of weeks ago.
Here’s the plan:
I didn’t think I would like the loop before I bought it (one of the reasons I bought the police chase set to start - no toy pieces), but it carried some novelty for a while. It basically acts to lengthen the straight, which I like because I’m pretty space-limited at the moment, especially in my build space for these Carrera Go layouts - my bar-size pool table.
But after running this layout for a while, it is a bit gimmicky. I’d prefer they included some different radius turns instead. More on that in a few.
Here’s a shot of the assembled layout:
The track actually ends up being fairly technical. The banked crossovers can be a real challenge at speed and the significant elevation changes make for some interesting and varied racing. If you have this pair of sets or similar, I’d give it a try. You will need some books or something to support the turn on the backside of the loop, unless you’re also building on a pool table 
Further impressions on the Carrera Go track system
After spending a couple of weeks messing with it, I’m still pretty happy with Carrera Go track. I’ve had a couple of the little track connectors break, but the sets come with a dozen or so extra so it’s not too big of a deal. But, I’d prefer it were engineered to not break at all, and it does seem sometimes that on the joints where they’re needed most they pop out.
The only other issue I’ve seen is some cars having minor issues with the inside lane of the banked turn, but usually tweaking the braids a bit will get over this (as long as you carry a little momentum through them).
The lack of turn variety is the biggest thing that will keep me from really getting into this scale. Yeah, it seems that there is ONE larger turn radius, but they are hard to come by. There are a few sets that have 180 degrees worth, but I haven’t seen them in the US, and I’ve only found one or two places that stock add-on packs of them (and I don’t know the vendors).
I’ve also looked a bit at the SCX product (but haven’t bought any of their track … yet!). They seem to be taking an approach that will please the enthusiasts a bit more, with no loops or wall-climb pieces. And they have a set that features more of the larger radius turns, but they have the same problem - 2 sizes of turns and that’s it.
I haven’t tried no magnet on this scale yet, but I’ll probably dump the magnets on the Nascars at some point and see how they slide.
You sure can’t beat the price. For less than $150 bucks, I’ve got enough track to create a bunch of different layouts and a few new cars to play with. It’s definitely a smaller investment than 1/32 and 1/24 and still can provide a ton of fun.
Technorati Tags: 1/43, carrera go, carrera go layouts, carrera go track plans, carrera set, carrera slot car, slot sets, slot track
Posted by John on
October 20, 2008
I found out over the weekend that my local Southern California Toys R Us is carrying Carrera Go. The one I went to had about four different sets, including the Police Chase I already bought from Amazon and the Mario Kart set.
I picked up a Nascar set, and after testing the box layout for a few minutes I have a layout set up combining the two sets. Pics coming soon..
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Posted by John on
October 14, 2008
I received my Carrera Go Police Chase set over the weekend.
Initially I’m very impressed with the quality of the track and parts. For a product that is considered “toy-class,” the assembly takes a little bit longer than I would have expected, and it seems like some of the parts could break fairly easily if they were handled roughly. The track has a rigid feel to it as opposed to more flexible tracks like Scalextric.
Putting the track together there are tabs on the end of each track piece that slide into one another along with the connectivity tabs. Once that goes together, there are clips that go on each side of the track to hold it in place. When I first received the set, I did set it up without putting the clips on very quickly in a temporary spot just to try it out. It will run reasonably well without putting in the clips, but it did seem like the track wanted to separate without the clips. I think you could really only run it clipless on a very small track for a short period of time.
Once you attach the clips, the track becomes very solid. You can have a 4 or 5 piece section of the track that is a very firm, you can pick it up as one unit. It has a nice rigid feel - it feels very weighty and very substantial, not at all like a kid’s toy. But, being that it’s rigid, I would wager that stepping on it for instance (if you have it set up on the floor) would be a bad thing. It would probably damage some of the tabs.
The only piece that I wasn’t totally enthused about was the guard rail attachments. Everything else, like I said, has a very solid and well connected feel when it goes together. The guardrail tabs tend to slide around and seem to come off very easily. They could be a little bit tighter fit. On the other hand, they look very cool when attached, especially along with the red and white striping on the edge of the turns.
The cars are pretty nice. They aren’t quite as detailed as 1/32nd scale cars, but they are a little nicer than I expected. They have some very nice detail elements. The police car has working police lights, which is very cool. The Corvette actually has a blue light underneath it that lights up as it goes around - the car has a clear bottom, and the light is inside.
The cars are very powerful on this track. For a track this small, you can’t really open them up without shooting them off the track. With the turbo button on the controller (I’ll talk more about this in a minute) you can pretty much remove the car from the track at any location just by hitting that button.
The police car has a higher center of gravity than the Corvette. I haven’t done much racing on the set yet (just a few laps with my girlfriend), but the cars definitely feel a bit unbalanced with an advantage going to the Corvette. I prefer stock set cars to be a bit more closely matched than these.
On the default layout, there doesn’t seem to be a distinct lane advantage.
The controllers are interesting. The feel of the plunger is a little stiff, but I was able to get decent control out of it. It obviously doesn’t have the feel of a good aftermarket controller from Parma or similar. But it does have the interesting (slightly gimmicky, but still fun) turbo feature. According to the manual, the plunger takes you from 0-70% power, and the turbo button is 100% power. On this particular set, I can use the turbo button coming out of one of the turns toward the straight away for a split second tap - any longer than that and the car doesn’t have time to slow down by the end of the straight and make the next turn. But it seems like it definitely gives a significant burst of power. On a track with a long straight away it would probably be a lot of fun.
Final Thoughts
For just under $50 (about the price of one good 1/32 scale car), I got a very nice full set including everything needed. The 1/43 format is nicer than I expected, feeling more like 1/32 than HO (although I haven’t tried ripping out the magnets to get the cars to slide yet!). I’d definitely recommend this set if you just want to check out the 1/43 format without a large investment. And, when Carrera Digital 143 comes out this track can be used with a digital set to build a bigger layout.
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