Wednesday July 23, 2003

NASCAR in 1/24th Scale Made Easy

Although I am mostly a "ready-to-run" type of enthusiast, sometimes products are released that catch my eye and give me motivation to try and build a model myself. This release from Pro-Track certainly falls into this category, and to my surprise turned out to be more ready-to-run than I expected.

I realize that this chassis isn't for everyone but given it is designed for both plastic or wooden tracks, it is certainly worth a closer look. When the chassis arrived here, I found everything was fully assembled and ready for the body mount kit to be installed. The wheelbase is already set perfect for use with 1/24th Scale NASCARS and Craftsman Trucks such as the Revell one shown in the photos but it is adjustable near the front axle. The instructions that come with the mounting kit (mounting kit comes with the chassis) are about as clear and easy to follow as you could ask, so I was eager to get started and breathe some life into our static kit.

However before we get to the body mounting, the chassis itself deserves a closer look. One of the first things I noticed were the wheels and tires, and how well they looked on the chassis. The rear tires are natural sponge rubber glued onto the wheel and of a soft compound with the fronts being of a slightly harder compound. These tires have the Pro-Track white lettering on the sides and although some fine scale enthusiasts might scoff at this, while your racing it as intended it provides a decent scale appearance. IMPORTANT to note is that Pro-track is now finalizing their own silicone tires for plastic track applications and should be available soon.

On our plastic Carrera track, these tires provided more grip than I expected and combining them with a magnet (if you use them) makes things even better. The wheels are aluminum and mount to the axle by the use of a .050 Allen set-screw. (Make sure you get a wrench if you do not have one already) You could easily paint these wheels to match your model, or you could use the wheels included in the kit and make inserts. I happen to think these aluminum wheels look great the way they are, so I left mine as they came on the chassis.

In the rear we see the Cheetah II motor (40,000 rpm) in the inline configuration with a 9 tooth pinion driving the 33 tooth Cox (they use those molds) crown gear. You also notice that this system is hard soldered in place that not only provides great durability, but has excellent gear mesh. A 1/8" axle is held in place by actual bearings instead of bushings and suffice it to say that this chassis is smooth as silk.

Up front we find the Jet guide held firmly in place with a 3/8 nut with virtually no free-play and excellent electrical connections. This guide blade, although deeper than your average RTR guide still negotiates our Carrera track without needing any trimming either in length or depth. The front wheels sit just slightly off our Carrera track, but do make contact in the turns. For plastic track they could be lowered slightly to get them closer to the track surface and still provide a perfect tripod effect. You can do this easily by removing the shim on the guide and replacing it with a shim about half the thickness of the original or sand down the existing shim to the desired height.

As good as this chassis is, how easy is it to attach a model body to it? Well thankfully it was easier than I hoped. I fully admit that I am just not that good at model conversions so if I think its easy...trust me it is! You have several options to accomplish this based on your preferences of adding the interior or not.

If you decide you don't want the kit interior as I did, Pro-track has included a scale template that you simply cut out and place inside the model body and this marks your areas for the side mounts. Make sure when you do the drivers side of the model you take template and place it with the printing towards the model, and this will give you the correct area for the mounts. I want to commend Pro-Track for having this template included in the instructions. They want to make it as easy as possible for even the beginner, and I think this template helps a great deal...at least it did for me. They also have a new Lexan interior coming soon with better detailing for those of you who choose this route.

These side mounts are aluminum discs with small shafts at the center. They are held to the body with the self-adhesive backed pads included in the kit. Once you have mounted these, then its time to attach the side brackets to the chassis frame and simply pop the body in place. This makes things very easy for quickly changing body styles using only one chassis and although the body is held in place by just the slightest pressure, it stays firmly on the chassis even in some of the harder tumbles. Just attach the L brackets as shown in the photos and make sure you use the larger hole in the bracket to allow for some adjustment. All in all it took me only 15 minutes from the time I opened the mounting hardware to the time it hit the track.

Performance of this chassis is by far one of the smoothest, most responsive models I have tested. Without adding any additional self-stick lead, this chassis still had more grip than we expected. Pro-Track is also bringing a Neo magnet (Part # 413) to help in the traction department for those that want to use them. In its standard form it still managed a decent time of 4.1 seconds on our DS Timer. As stated earlier, performance on plastic track will increase once the silicone tires become available. Braking is a little light but we became used to it rather quickly, and if you decide to add a strong magnet this will also increase the braking a little. We easily could slide our model around our Carrera oval and this kind of action becomes very addictive, at least for us.

However, it isn't just how well this model runs that makes me like it so much. Pro-Track doesn't hide the fact that this chassis targets the 1/24th scale NASCAR crowd and given the amount of 1/24th scale kits out there it looks to be a match made in heaven for me. It is a smooth runner, highly durable, and best of all EASY to build. We have logged quite a few miles on this chassis and it just gets smoother as we break it in.

For $29.99 (now available at your dealer) your getting a great deal if you ask me. Combine this with the price of a new model kit of your choice and you are still under the average price for some 1/32nd scale models. I have to recommend this chassis to fans of the series and to those who want to try something different in their 1/24 home racing. I think Pro-Track has created a winner with this chassis and once you drive one, I think you will too.

- Harry

As always feel free to contact me about this article or just the hobby in general at wiseone@yhti.net, or better yet drop into our Message Forum and share your thoughts with other enthusiasts!

Thanks go to Pro-Track for providing us with this excellent chassis. They are in the middle of rebuilding their website now and it should be back online soon.