| March 15, 2006 Review |
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 Artin 'American Thunder' 4-Lane Track Test By Shawn Smith Appearance:  Measuring just shy of two feet tall and a little under three feet wide I came home to find the large box containing the new Artin four-lane oval track set sitting by my front door. 'Heavy' I said to myself as I picked up the box from SlotCarWorld and carried it in to my house. After cutting open the brown packing box around this track set I found the large poster covered box of track pieces and headed down to the Garage's basement to get a better look.  Opening one end of the box I found two layers stacked tightly inside and carefully sliding the cardboard trays out I got my first glimpse of Artin oval track pieces. As you can see most of the parts come carefully wrapped in plastic then secured in place with packing tape and cut out sections of the box trays.  Removing the track sections one pack at a time I placed them around in groups by their contents starting with the obvious straight sections, the longer outer curves of the new Artin R4 turn sections, the shorter sections of the Artin R3 turn sections, the combination border/wall pieces, the large power supply and controllers.       Taking a moment to closer inspect the controllers I smiled at their 'taser-like' appearance then grabbed one in my hand to see how it felt as I pulled the trigger a few times.  Setting the controllers aside I then placed the four included Artin stockers aside taking note of the red, white, blue and black undecorated bodies of the set cars.  Of course just like we were provided with individually shipped cars the Artin oval track set also comes with the four corresponding sheets of stickers designed to help decorate each of the four colored cars provided. Also found within the sets contents were two small bags containing replacement guides and braids for each of the cars assuming that you'll drive them enough to actually wear the braids out... and you will!   Now having all of the track parts laying around ready for assembly I was tempted to start slapping everything together, disregarding the included instructions, however curiousity got the better of me and I decided to look at the directions anyway...  In the instructions there is a parts list to help assure you have everything you need to fully set up the set, a graphic showing images of the included track sections as well as other available Artin add-on track pieces as well as sections of the paperwork dedicated to describing braid replacement, track cleaning and instructions on how to easily make your own banking supports to convert flat turns in to banked turns.     Performance:  Having everything unwrapped and ready for assembly I decided to take some quick measurements before putting everything together. Starting with the Artin standard straight I measured this track section to be just shy of six and a half inches wide, about a half of an inch more narrow than the NINCO track and an inch and a quarter more narrow than the Carrera track I own. The Artin straight's overall length measured an exact ten and a half inches long, three inches shorter than the Carrera and slightly over five inches shorter than my NINCO straights.   Measuring across the top of the R3 turns I got a number of nine and three-quarter inches across at its longest point while the longer R4 turn sections had a length of around twelve and a quarter inches overall.   Placing both an inner R3 and outer R4 together it looked like the sections would fit perfectly together but just to be certain Artin thankfully includes small track clips that can be used to help secure your inner lane track sections to your outer lane track pieces. These small clips are U-shaped sections of plastic that slide down over the edge lips of the two adjoining track sections to lock them together. This certainly is a helpful addition, especially for those who might be building their new Artin oval on a carpeted or otherwise uneven surface.     Looking closely at the rails you can easily see how each rail is isolated by a thick, rigid, wall of plastic that thankfully showed no signs of slot-width variation in any section of track I inspected. The slot itself is also one hundred percect solid meaning that there are no openings in the bottom or sides of the Artin slot for carpet or other performance inhibiting material to get in the slot and eventually find their way in to your cars.  Track connections are some of the easiest on the market, requiring no clips or odd alignment of track sections to join two sections of track together, and by simply matching up the obvious male/female shapes of the track pieces the track pushes together easily and even locks itself together from underneath.    Yet another nice feature of this Artin four-lane set is the one piece power and controller track section that allows you to connect all four controllers to one power base and all four lanes get power through the same track piece. The power section is marked with arrows that show the direction of car travel and about the only thing I could wish for might be a direction switch to permit you to run your cars in the opposing direction. Since this is an oval race track however there are only left-turns allowed so I can't knock the single direction of travel too badly. (wink)   Finally getting to work on assembly its important to remember that you're going to need a space that's roughly eight feet long and five and a half fee wide. To start you simply need to add two additional straight sections per lane added to the power track to acheive the three straights per side as shown in the assemply diagram. Now with the side one straights in place I began adding the R3 inner turns and within a matter of two minutes I had lanes one and two ready to go and I could start work on lanes three and four.   Following the same procedure as the inner lane I starting connecting the first turn, added three more straight sections of track on the other side of the layout, then placing the outer R4 turns coming around to the front straight I connected the final piece in less than 5 minutes and was ready to race! In the images below you can hopefully get an idea of the total track size thanks to the placement of an Artin stocker in one of the turns. It takes up a good deal of floor space even without the borders but it does come with borders so you can't race without them right?    Yet another nice feature of this Artin four-lane oval is the one piece border/wall combination. Most track manufacturers offer borders for their track sets however most require you to add walls or guardrails separately. Not the case with this oval as these rigid borders not only give you a strong wall to keep your cars on the track but they go on as easily as you could hope for and stay in place surprisingly well.  Each track section as a 'lip' on it that the border section attaches to. At first I wondered how well these would stay in place however upon connecting them to the turn sections I could tell the fit would be snug enough to keep them easily in place.   If you align these just right the fit is perfect and I like that, once pressed in place, there is no erratic elevation problems between the border and track section it attaches to meaning a car can transition smoothly on to the border when the tail end slides out. While I really like these borders I do wish they were a just a little bit wider to let the cars slide out farther however this is not a complaint and more of a personal wish.   Once the track is assembled and the borders have been added the included instructions not only offer a suggestion on how to bank your new four-lane oval but they give you templates to make banked supports as well as suggest an inexpensive product that works well for the application. With two simple pieces of one dollar foam core board the instructions claim you can make all of the needed supports to bank both ends of your track. While I chose not to bank mine right now I certainly will if I can decide to permanently mount the track on a table. To get an idea of what that would look like the instructions included images of a completed banked track.   Ok... the track is all together, the borders are on and it's time to start connecting the power and controllers. As you can easily see above there are two distinctively taller spots for the four-prong power plugs to be connected to and four smaller locations to connect the two plug controllers.    After plugging in all four controllers I then plugged the power connections in before plugging the wall plug in to the electrical outlet. Once the power is connected to the track there are red LEDs on the power base that light up to let you know that power is being supplied.  The power pack itself was of some interest to me because upon inspection of the technical information I noticed that the voltage output was rated at only 12-volts. This is the lowest rating of any 1/32 scale track sets that I've tested so as you can imagine I was curious about how well this power supply would allow the cars to run. Thankfully my assumptions that the power supply would leave me wanting for more voltage were wrong. Placing an Artin stocker on the front straight and sending it off for its first few laps proved to me that even at 12-volts the Artin cars have no problems getting the most out of the power supply. Achieving wheel spin was effortless and drifting through the turns soon became the source of hours of entertainment. Knowing however that the magnets used in Artin cars are some of the lightest on the market I soon began to wonder how the power supply would function with something a little more stuck down. So... out came a few cars like the FLY Viper, Monogram BMW 320, Scalextric L88 Corvette, and others for some laps around the oval and again to my surprise the power could still over power the cars sending each and every one of them crashing if you didn't respect exactly how much speed you could force through the turns.  Artin Stockers back on the track you can hopefully get a good idea of lane spacing by the next few images. Here with the red and blue stockers side by side you can easily see that the cars have sufficient space between them however they are close enough to do some serious door banging in the turns.  The Final Verdict:  Am I done playing with the Artin four-lane oval? I can easily say that the answer is a solid 'No!'. Having run on Artin track in the past I already knew I would like the racing surface of the track and the ease of the track connections means that I'll have no issues taking apart and setting up this track as much as I need to. The stock Artin power supply delivers sufficient power for the size of this layout and even the controllers pleasantly surprised me both in control of the cars and basic comfort in my hand after a couple hundred laps. The Artin stockers that come with this set are the perfect contenders for racing on a layout like this having light enough downforce, and enough motor, to require you to drive the car through the turns yet are durable as well as believable as modern stock car styled cars. For the suggested retail price of $179.00 dollars this track set is an undeniable value. Four lanes, four cars, four controllers, power supply and enough wall-borders to finish off the layout means a whole lot of fun for you and three of your friends for around the cost that other manufacturers charge for their more basic two-lane slot car sets. For another $170.00 you can even pick up the inner four lane set and make eight lanes of oval fun. Is it the perfect plastic slot car track? Doesn't really matter as I haven't found the one that is. What does matter is your fun factor, which a track like this provides with ease and if your budget controls your buying decisions I can't suggest enough to give a set such as this one a try. Special thanks go to SlotCarWorld.com for providing the new Artin 'American Thunder' 4-Lane Oval Track for review. As always, feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions and I will be happy to answer anything that I can. Happy Slotting! Shawn Smith SJSlots@hotmail.com |
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