November 16, 2008
 NINCO Bowler Nemesis 'Test Car' Review By Shawn Smith Appearance: From the Bowler Offroad Official website: Introducing the Bowler Nemesis. The result of experience gained from the Wildcat along with the latest in Land Rover and rally raid technology. Our new vehicle is a full blown desert racer designed to cope with the harshest events the World Off Road Rally circuit can provide. Fully independent adjustable suspension to maintain traction over the roughest terrain. A lower centre of gravity, wider track and longer wheelbase provide greater stability and poise at speed. This vehicle will provide the same thrill of our previous race vehicles but with added performance and refinement. The aggressive muscular lines are a reminder of the vehicles racing heritage.  Not having a ton of RAID knowledge myself I really had no idea what this thing was when it showed up for review however now having looked the vehicle up it makes sense to me why it looks like a Range Rover yet carries a different name. The statement 'a lower centre of gravity, wider track and longer wheelbase provide greater stability and poise at speed' I find particularly interesting as even in slot form I could tell it was going to perhaps benefit on the track thanks for all the same reasons although I question the 'longer wheelbase' comment. If you like the NINCO Mitsubishi Pajero or their BMW X5 this little Bowler is going to really give them a run for their money.  Detail wise the Bowler isn't going to blow anyone away. It's a good looking little truck but really pretty plain from an appearance standpoint. The headlights and front grill work are perhaps the nicest detail features and I think I might try and install an LED light kit in this thing.   Very large side view mirrors stick out nice and far from the sides of the truck and will likely be early casualties of crashes. Mine stayed on although I did loosen one up on the passenger side pretty well without it breaking off during testing. One slight cosmetic problem I did happen to find; take a look at the side windows both above and below. The interior glass wasn't well secured and it droops making it look like the windows are partially rolled down. Can't decide if I want to pop the interior out to fix the issue because then I'll have to glue both the glass and interior back in.  The interior, fitted with the typical driver and navigator figures also has very thin roll bars and printed notes in the co-pilots hands.  Tailights are the only details on the back of the Bowler as the windows are modeled as solid painted panels like the rest of the body. While the solid windows match the prototype perfectly the tailights could be better detailed being all red in contrast to the real versions which I found have both clear and amber details. A few sponsor logos are painted on the back and little black exhaust tips, actually a molded part of the chassis, wrap up the points of interest on the back of the truck. There are also some cool little mud flaps behind all four wheels and the wheels are gun-metal gray 6-spokes that look similar to the prototype rims used on the 1:1 trucks although they are not an exact match.   Being from Cincinnati there is something very hard for me not to like about the Bowler Test Car's looks and I think its the Bengal tiger looking paintjob. The contrast of the gray on the orange looks just like real images I found of the truck although my camera does make the orange look a little more 'peach' than it really is.  It looks really light next to the dayglow orange of a different NINCO ProTruck and I placed them side by side so that you can get a better idea of the size differences between the two. No longer having a Pajero to compare it to I can't help but wonder if this isn't the smallest of the NINCO RAID product line. Even if its not its certainly smaller than the ProTrucks and is dwarfed by the NINCO HUMMER but what will that mean on the race track? Performance:  Before we get to kicking up the dirt lets have a look inside and to remove the body there are three screws to take out. In the back the screw is found directly in the center of the chassis while the ones up front are found just to the inside of each wheel.   Body now removed the mid-mounted, in-line motor placement powers a gear driven rear axle through brass bushing and on each axle there is also the standard red plastic belt pullies that delivers power to the front axle for its all wheel drive effect.  The motor is the standard RAIDER NC-7 found in all of the off road truck line and its a pretty torque happy little motor that supplies ample power. This is however the first time for me finding the new NINCO push on tab connections on a RAID truck so now replacing the motor no longer means fiddling with removing the motor wires from the guide during a motor swap if you so choose to do so. Frankly I've never managed to wear out an NC-7 although I can tell you this motor powered the Bowler very quickly and during testing it crossed my mind to possibly replace it with something with a few less RPM's, especially for no-mag driving.   Of course NINCO's springs are a standard for this type of racer and the Bowler comes fitted with the yellow 'hard' springs. I know some may not care for the 'gimmick' of the springs but I've found the set up to be a lot of fun more often than not.  I also like that this little Bowler was designed using the longer of the NINCO drop arms for the guide. As you can see it provides a pretty large range of motion for those interested in using the obstacles on the NINCO off road track sections and it benefits the truck even on flat surface racing as with the magnet in its not uncommon to get a little front tire lift and even a little 'tipping' action.  And while it does come with a bar magnet installed I personally like the way the truck drives better with the magnet removed. These trucks are a lot of fun to toss around non-magnet and the slides you get are often the most fun of driving one of these. With the magnet in place, seen below just behind the motor, the truck turns much faster laps although sadly its just not as much fun as when I take the magnet out.  And the magnet obviously helps the lap times but when driving something like this setting lap records should be the farthest thing from anyone's mind. Even so the no-mag times were actually pretty good, averaging around the 8-second mark and posting a fastest lap of the test of 7.875. This is pleasing considering the majority of my other non-mag rally type cars tend to run in the 7-flat to 7.5 range and even with the magnet in my Pro-Trucks they have a tough time running a lap close to 7.875. With the magnet in this Bowler turned a pretty decent 6.744 and that just flat blows away the Pro-Trucks and other cars like the NINCO HUMMER so I guess the claims made by Bowler really do carry over to the slot version. It's lower center of gravity mixed with a short but wide wheel base proved it to be a pretty stable little truck and a blast to run no mag. The Final Verdict:  If you are a fan of the NINCO RAID line this Bowler Nemesis is a great addition and may likely be one of the best driving of the group. I was pleasantly surprised by the lap times and even happier with the way it drove non-magnet without flipping over on its side a lot and it was really pretty stable for the type of racer it is. Aside from a little issue with the interior glass being a little loose I liked this little Bowler a lot and I think NINCO has done a really good job with it over all. Thanks to Model Rectifier (MRC) for providing the NINCO Bowler Nemesis 'Test Car' 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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