Thoughts on the Entire LEGO Town Subtheme; Race
This is the entire LEGO Town subtheme; Race, and I'd like to talk about it.
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| Buckle up, boys. And not-boys. Be safe, is what I'm saying. |
So after completing my thoughts on 6714: Speed Dragster, I ended up on a bit of a kick.
I also ended up on eBay. And BrickLink. Spent a lot of time on BrickLink. But I'll talk about that as we go along, let's just begin with a very brief history, and a very cool logo.
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| Please enjoy this unnecessarily high-resolution logo. |
The LEGO Town subtheme; Race released in the year 2000 consists of six retail sets, 6519: Turbo Tiger, 6602: Scorpion Buggy, 6616: Rocket Dragster, 6617: Tough Truck Rally, 6713: Grip 'n' Go Challenge and 6714: Speed Dragster. I'll be going over each one, not in their set order, but in order of size/price, so with that, let's get on with 6519: Turbo Tiger.
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| WATCH OUR RESIDENT ROCKET JOCKEY TAKE THE TURBO TIGER THROUGH THE FLAMING DEATH COURSE, THIS SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! |
Predominantly blue with a kind of roadmap pattern to make the space less vacant, it's paired with some very nice art of a muddy arena surrounded by stands packed with cheering fans (and is where I got my set dressing ideas.)
The alternate build is very prominently featured on the box, which was the style at the time, but the Race boxes take it a little further by showing the drivers actively taking apart the main builds to make the alternates, a very fun touch. Sadly, outside of some basic instructions in the back of most of the manuals, there isn't any documentation on the alt builds, even the very useful Back of the Box Builds has nothing from this series at all, an understandable and very expected shame.
But let's get onto the set's driver, our man here is, as mentioned before, Chip. He features a wonderfully printed torso with his tiger logo on the front, along with some printed straps to really sell the racing suit look. His hat is the classic flat-brim ballcap, element #4485 which was superseded in 2006 by a curved brim variant, #86035, though the flat brim lasted until 2013. His helmet is a relatively rare piece, #30038, which only appeared in a grand total of twenty-five sets, largely in dark grey and while it was softly retired in 2000, it made a bizarre appearance (in a new color, even) in 2006's 8673: Ferrari F1 Fuel Stop, worn by a pit crew member and paired with the ever-lovely chrome gold visor, element #769.
But now you might have already noticed a discrepancy between this Chip and the Chip on the box; his legs. This is the only change I've made to any part of these sets and I think it's all for the better, and it spawned from a conversation me and my homie had just after I'd gotten the Turbo Tiger. I sent him a photo and he said, quote,
"jeez, chip looks even more like he's wearing no pants in physical form somehow"
And I'm inclined to agree with that statement, but let's do a direct comparison.
So we discussed it further and decided that Chip looks far, far more cohesive with the rest of the Race crew with yellow pants, the straps on his torso help to sell the racing jumpsuit look and delineate his head yellow from his suit yellow, kind of like how yellow Classic Spacemen keep from looking naked thanks to the helmet and airtanks.
So while I may have said in my previous post that Chip looks like he's not wearing pants, my opinion has changed. Set Chip is the pantless one, Stunt Rally Chip is much more panted, and so the all-yellow legs are on my main Chip to stay. No offense to secondary Chip, he's just letting too much hang out. Now that we've talked about pants, let's talk about the actual car.
The Turbo Tiger is a splendid little buggy, even with its tiny piece count, barely forty pieces comprise the entire thing but they're put to excellent use. The classic chassis piece, #4212b, is here in black to contrast the primarily yellow construction very nicely, but the spaces on either side that usually serve as wheel wells are left empty.
Instead the wheels are moved to the front and rear bumpers using piece #2926, in a technique not dissimilar to 1994's wonderful 6538: Rebel Roadster, and provides a similar forward rake to the entire vehicle thanks to both sets' mismatched wheels.
The set also features element #30191 as a long rollcage, a very effective part usage shared by 6617: Speed Dragster, the flexible piece is connected to the front clips securely, and to the handle or exhaust piece, #3839b, that can easily be disconnected to let the entire assembly fold forward to let Chip hop into the driver's seat.
Funny looking rocket boosters, aren't they? They've got handles, and something that looks like a rotor in the back, but they make use of the hollow studs to mount the flame pieces, the pair of #6126as that aren't in the flaming cone obstacles. But let's look at those a little closer, huh?
It's some really fantastic part usage for a piece that barely lasted five years and showed up only a few times in black compared to the ten times in yellow, it's a shame the piece saw retirement considering its versatility, only having been used as something other than an underwater scooter in this single set. Modren sets themed around diving occasionally feature scooters, but they're largely brick-built anymore, a bit sad since these scooters are so delightfully minifigure-scaled compared to their newer, bulkier counterparts.
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| Ahh, ze undersea world... |
So despite its tiny size, I think 6519: Turbo Tiger is a fantastic set, it's got a fun design, good parts usage, flaming death obstacles, a cool driver (cooler after you give him some pants) and some great stickers. It hits a lot of the right marks for a five dollar set, something that basically does not exist today. If it released today at this price point and piece count, Turbo Tiger here would be relegated to a polybag, not a box. I've bought polybags recently for the same price but with more pieces, like 2023's easter-themed Creator 3-in-1 set, 30643: Easter Chickens, which has fifteen more pieces than this. Is it really a fair metric? Not really, this, to me, is a much better set with more going on, but it tells you how LEGO feels about teeny-weeny sets.
Best case scenario this would be a "gift with purchase" polybag, but the kind that'd end up overflowing the end-cap shelves at Target a month ahead of its official release and it would still be the exact kind of set I'd be inclined to buy, what I want more of. LEGO still puts out sets this big, with cars, and obstacles, but look at 2022's 30589: Go-Kart Racer, it's got a car, it's got cones, it's basically the same as this, but it's got no pizzazz. These small-box offerings used to be like this, like 5918: Scorpion Tracker, like 4910: The Hover Scout, even like 7311: Red Planet Cruiser, bonafide classics that ran the gamut from three to seven bucks but were still part of the set range, not a tertiary offering for either rare parts or impulse purchases. If I can rag on modren LEGO for anything it's not so much the costing too much, it's not offering as much fun for five dollars.
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| THRILL AS OUR DAREDEVIL DRIVER TAKES THE SCORPION BUGGY OVER THE FIRE-SPITTING SEE-SAW RAMP, THIS SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! |
Set 6602: Scorpion Buggy is the theme's second smallest set, weighing in at 78 pieces and retailing for $9.99 (US.)
Double the price but not double the piece count of 6519: Turbo Tiger, the set does feature some big, big pieces, a much bigger obstacle and most importantly; suspension on the vehicle.
Let's look at our suspension stuntman, Wrench, who's got a great face print and a heckuvalotta stubble, along with yet another nice torso print, matching Chip's but with a red neck strap and a black and red scorpion emblem, based on the LEGO scorpion, element #30169, a classic critter by all accounts, having menaced minifigures in loads of themes since its introduction in 1998 with the release of the Adventurers theme, a perfect thing to have skulking around the Egyptian desert.
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| A meeting of the visored minds. |
The only other sets this visor showed up in were in three Time Cruisers sets, including the especially fun 6492: Hypno Cruiser, as part of Dr. Cyber and Tim's various disguises, though why they'd need to covertly blend in with the friendly environment researchers of the planet Krysto, we may never know.
Getting onto the Scorpion Buggy proper, the build is considerably bigger than the Turbo Tiger even though it uses the exact same chassis, that old #4212b, but to completely different effect.
While both vehicles have the front wheels mounted to a #2926, the Scorpion Buggy has its rear wheels on a pair of Technic beams (#32316) and kept from wobbling on the frictionless pins of the #30000 with a pair of rubberbands.
This print reappears in 6713: Grip 'n' Go Challenge and is exclusive to Wrench's vehicles. It's a surprise this isn't a sticker, even with the finicky nature of getting stickers to adhere to the textured surface of most slope bricks, it easily could've been, but maybe Wrench was just that special a boy.
It's not entirely clear what the big neon brick is for, there are taillights under the exhausts and another 1x2 transparent neon green plate underneath it, we can just go ahead and assume it was put there because it looks cool.
Also looking cool are the big chunky tires that, along with the raised suspension, give the buggy its unique shape. Now about that suspension...
The suspension is restricted from having too much play thanks to the wheel well of the #4212b, keeping it forced back to maintain the long wheelbase and keeping it reigned in with the rear bumper so it doesn't completely flatten out. I'd almost say it's too restricted, since there's not an extreme difference between all the way up and all the way down, but it does make the Scorpion Buggy a very fun and bouncy little ride.
To digress a little bit, I actually built a Scorpion Buggy of my own, realizing I had all the parts in white and blue instead of red and yellow, I knocked one together one day (rubberbands included!) and I thought it was a pretty cool set, even without the proper driver. No idea what happened to it, it might still be partially constructed in one of my LEGO bins that I haven't gone through in a while.
Anyway.
As far as attractive play features go, it's a winner, with the strong color scheme and the neat functions, but it's not just a ramp.
The simple inclusion of a 1x3 brick, a 1x2 brick with a hole and the stopper pin elevates this side build from "pretty neat" to "very cool," since it offers two completely different styles of stunt rampery in one build.
But let's see it in kind of action.
The actual process is a little smoother than this, it's hard to photograph halfway during its descent, but you get the idea. You drive it up, the see-saw tilts, and you drive it down, it's very fun to do, and the size of the ramp means you can do it with a lot of different cars, even the Turbo Tiger can handle this ride, albeit not as smoothly.
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| He'll put it back when we're done, honest. |
Emblazoned with the Octan logo and coated in scuffs revealing the metal underneath the paint, this is a stellar print and the set comes with four of them, it's a fantastic piece that wouldn't look at all out of place on a modren set, Octan's logo having never significantly changed, thankfully spared a fresh, minimalist redesign.
The weird part, though, the extremely, unreasonably weird part, though, is that this piece is nearly set-exclusive! This print, that you'd think would have tons of applications over multiple themes was only ever in this set and one other, set 10016: Tanker, from 2001's My Own Train theme, and that set only has two of these. It's a nifty set, the My Own Train sets were all uniformly great, but the fact that this print only lasted two years in only two sets is absolutely bonkers. Before picking this set up I completely expected these four tiles to be stickered, my surprise when I received the set and discovered they were prints, really, really good prints, was immense, and my sadness that these never got their proper due is immeasurable.
Seriously, if you want cool, good signage for your Octan-related MOCs, gas stations, tanker trucks, space ships, I don't care what, pick you up some Scorpion Buggies, have a whole clan of Wrenches just to have more of this piece, this set is like five bucks used and you get four of these flippin' things, and you don't have to bust up the buggy to use 'em.
Tight fit, but it could work.
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| WIND IT UP AND WATCH IT GO, SPEED DRAGSTER HITS THE TRACK THIS SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! |
Set 6714: Speed Dragster is the theme's... second-middlest set? Weighing in at 80 pieces and retailing for $14.99 (US.) I've already gone over this set in my aforementioned previous post, along with a pretty lengthy digression about the theme's associated game, LEGO Stunt Rally and its vehicles and its characters and all that, so I don't really need to talk about it again here.
I will, later, but not in this segment, instead I'm gonna ask an important question about Barney, one he might be just a little uncomfortable with, but it needs to be asked...
Chip has his hat, Wrench has his bandana, Lucky has her green hair, but Barney just has his aviator helmet, all the time. Sure the goggles flip up, but it just seems like he's missing something compared to the rest of the crew.
So I've decided that we need to try and rectify that, not an easy task seeing as there was barely any hair in 2000, and even less obviously masculine hair, so we'll have to step outside the boundaries of time and try some hair that was introduced in the years beyond Barney's release.
Don't be shy, now, the camera don't bite.
Time for the 2024 Barney Headgear Showcase.
Starting with the classic flat-brim ballcap, element #4485, in blue, Barney's looking sharp, and though his style might be stepping on Chip's square toes a bit, his sideburns get to shine in this tried and true hat.
From classic to classic, Barney sports the age-old mens' hairpiece, element #3901, like a champ, looking very professional.
Sadly his distinctive widow's peaks are shrouded entirely behind the bangs, he nonetheless looks handsome in this timeless piece.
Despite its release two years after Barney's heyday, the high flat-top, element #30608 is an excellent choice for those in racing, mad science, and espionage. Making its original debut in brown in the Alpha Team set, 6773: Alpha Team Helicopter, Barney can wear it almost as well as the Alpha Team leader Dash did on its initial outing.
Also from 2002, we have element #41334, making its debut in the Island Xtreme Stunts theme, it was the Brickster's chapeau of choice, his such example was followed by droves of crooks and criminals in the years to follow, LEGO City's ne'er-do-wells would be lost without this smart and sporting knit cap.
And while Barney's no jailbird he still looks fabulous in this well-worn number.
For effortless style we look to element #62180, no product in this hair!
This naturally-settled style has appeared since 2008, not a replacement for the venerable #3901 but a more casual counterpart, and Barney here looks great in it, a loose and free look.
I don't think this one works, no, doesn't, uh...
This is element #53981, from 2006, introduced in the Exo-Force theme and worn by, by a lotta anime guys.
And LEGO Batman's Nightwing for a little while, I don't know what was up with that.
Next hair, move on.
Ostensibly a ladies' style, element #90396 is a wonderful fit for Barney, the hairline matching perfectly to his own and highlighting his angular sideburns.
Looking like a heavy metal superstar, the only problem for him now is getting it all up under his helmet before a race!
Barney got a bit too into element #87995, originally introduced in 2010 with the Circus Clown in the first series of Collectable Minifigures in red, it was quickly adopted by the Disco Dude in the second series later that same year.
We've asked him to change back into his racing suit, but we'll give him a moment.
The most modren hairstyle in our shoot, element #3277 was introduced in 2023, worn by many a stylish modren minifigure and minidoll, Barney really makes it work with his existing hairline, the middle part emphasizing those peaks.
This startlingly tall bouffant is element #98371, introduced by 2012's Mechanic from the sixth series of Collectable Minifigures.
The shocking height is no barrier to style, but perhaps a barrier to the use of small doorways, Barney still pulls it off with aplomb, though he'd have a tough time getting his helmet over it!
But now that our modeling fun is done, Barney's decided to stick to what he knows for now.
Thanks for being such a good sport, Barney.
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| IT'S NOT JUST RUBBER BURNING OUT THERE WHEN ROCKET DRAGSTER TAKES TO THE SPEED TRACK THIS SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! |
Set 6617: Rocket Dragster is the theme's middlest set, weighing in at 147 pieces and retailing for $19.99 (US.)
It's the second of two sets to feature Chip, swapping the tiniest vehicle of the batch for one of the loooongest, and totally customized to fit his tiger theme.
Like any drag racer, the Rocket Dragster is an engine with a seat in front and what an engine, a huge array of exhausts coat the pull-back motor, piece #32283c01, which is shared with 6714: Speed Dragster and is very nearly exclusive to the two sets. The use of a megaphone for the air intake is also shared with Speed Dragster, albeit using piece #4589 in transparent neon orange to mount it. The two flames erupting from behind the engine are also mounted on this piece, though flames erupting from the back of your engine usually isn't what you want happening.
Of special note is element #6807 which appears here in yellow, one of only two sets to include it, the other being the largest set in the Town subtheme; Space Port, 6475: Mission Control as part of the shuttle launch platform. The operator's seat, specifically.
But here's where I go on about stickers again, being such a big ol' sticker lover, the stickers on this set are great, just like the ones in 6519: Turbo Tiger, the gradient and striping match that set's and look great, super crisp design work. In fact, the stickers were a pretty big bugbear of mine while acquiring this set.
I ordered this and Grip 'n' Go Challenge from the same BrickLink shop, AZBrick who had only those two sets for sale, and as of this writing is selling nothing, I cleaned 'em out. I could have probably gotten them separately without soaking the shipping cost from Arizona but it was too perfect, and I'm not one to deny fate when it's looking right at me. So I ordered the sets, I waited for the sets, I endured a major shipping delay and finally got the sets... only to discover that the only stickers on the set were those pictured on the windshield above, piece #6152a (which is completely set-exclusive in yellow, by the by), all the others were missing. So a double shout-out to AZBrick for refunding me the cost of the set, the tax, and the Paypal cut, a top bloke in all respects.
But now I had a set I'd essentially been paid to own, but no stickers to complete it. I could order another Rocket Dragster and hope the placement was good (the middle sticker on the windshield is a little crooked already but I won't fuss about it) but I opted do something that still boggles my mind; I bought the sticker sheet.
The entire sticker sheet, unused, unfiddled by grubby hands, cost me nearly as much as another copy of the set would've, but it was worth every penny to be able to apply the rest my own self. The specific store I bought them from, The Brick Resort, has a couple hundred brand new sticker sheets from an enormous variety of sets, and was the only one who had the sheet for Rocket Dragster domestically. They were even kind enough to provide a photo when I asked about the condition, since the sheet was marked as used.
So with the sticker circumstances out of the way, let's look at the big sticker on the rear wing.
Look at this beauty of a decal, Chip's tiger emblem blown up to nearly as big as he is and plastered over piece #6180, a not quite tile, not quite plate piece that's perfect for stickered signage but was initially introduced in 1994 in the Belville theme as... counterops, pretty much exclusively countertops.
It was still a cool set before I had the proper stucker, but compared to this it was sad. This is really why I had to get that sticker sheet, why have this set without its best feature?
But I'll continue having my sticker moment in a bit, for now I'd like to touch on some interesting part connection seen here.
Rather than using the anti-studs on the bottom of the plate, the hinge piece here (#30365) actually fits into two of the tubes on the underside to center the wing.
Now the manual doesn't explain this, if you go read it the plate is just put on there without an explanation as to how it's supposed to fit, I can only imagine there were loads of kids, and even adults, that put it on using the anti-studs and forever had an off-center rear wing on their Rocket Dragster, wondering why it didn't look like it did in the picture on the box.
Thankfully modren instructions usually have a reverse shot to really nail home how a piece is to be attached, but that still doesn't stop people from puttin' stuff on wrong, we can only be glad these kinds of clever build techniques haven't faded away because some people are real dumb.
Now let's get back to more stickers! Here's the side build of the set, the dragstrip finish line that's made of positively enormous pieces, two 6x10 plates, two 1x16 bricks, two 1x15 Technic beams, even two of element #30219, a piece typically used as a mast for windsurfers and small crafts here being used as flagpoles.
Taking a closer look at the pair of 1x16 bricks, both bricks have two stickers each, the matching DRAG RACING logos and the time and speed readouts flanked by two Octan logos. Ever the big racing event sponsor, that Octan, gotta get gas in cars after all. The Octan theming continues onto the pair of flags, the grille pieces at either end, and even the 1x4 plates that hold the 1x16 bricks together, they're all red and green, much like the color scheme of the ramp in 6602: Scorpion Buggy.
Now we get onto the biggest, biggest pieces in the set, these absolutely monstrous stanchions, element #2681. With enormous 6x6 bases and standing ten bricks tall, these pieces were typically used as the supports for monorail track, like in the all-time classic sets 6399: Airport Shuttle and 6990: Monorail Transport System and were usually paired with their smaller counterpart, #2680 for slopes and gradients.
The interesting thing about these stanchions, besides their immense size, is their studs, which are a plate and a half tall. Like this they're not exactly studs, they're closer to the connections on minifigure legs in height and shape, let's look a little closer.
And as you can also see, plates fit neatly on top but leave that half-plate of clearance beneath. As far as I'm aware neither #2681 nor #2680 were ever used with plates on top in any official sets, but they do fit.
The flags are down, the Technic beams are pushed forward and coated in flames, and here comes the Rocket Dragster down the track.
Now if it's going at speed...
Vrrrrroom!
The front end hits the beam, flicks it back and hits the base of the flag assembly, knocking it up and hopefully putting it all the way up, like so.
And the Rocket Dragster passes through, and is the big winner.
Winner against who, though?
It's a really wide finish line, and there's two beams, and two flags...
I did say Barney had a part in this segment before, this is that part in this segment.
But the thing they have exactly in common is...
This thing, the "launchers" that hold the dragsters in place while wound up. I complained about the one in Speed Dragster being ugly in my post about that set, I still think it's ugly, but imagine my immense surprise when I put together Rocket Dragster and found the exact same pile-of-bricks design in an alternate color scheme.
It kind of legitimizes it, being a standardized design between two sets in appropriately character-specific colors, it says that these builds aren't an afterthought or just random parts usage. In fact, just like Speed Dragster, Rocket Dragster's alternate build uses no pieces from the launcher.
I don't think it redeems the design, however functional it is, just because I still think it's ugly, but it's easy to think more fondly of something when you've got two of it. That's how people wind up with collections, so I've heard.
It's a very strange case, these two sets, I like both their designs on their own, Speed Dragster's great printed 2x4 slope and rollcage, the use of the stanchion piece for the rear wing's support, and Rocket Dragster's funky bodywork, flame-spewing engine and all-around great sticker designs, especially the big tiger emblem on the wing.
In terms of being enjoyed on its own, I'd say Rocket Dragster edges out Speed Dragster for content, those 67 additional pieces get put to good work with the finish line build and getting the flags to actually raise is fun. Speed Dragster really doesn't have anything else going on, it just goes vroom, there's no obstacles or side builds unlike every other set in the range, but sometimes vroom is its own reward.
Some sets are just better together and these two were clearly designed for it, the comics at the end of either set's manual specifically depict them being a pair, since you can't really have a one-person drag race.
And Barney absolutely smokes Chip in both comics, you'd think he'd win in his own set's manual but Barney still wins!
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| IT'S A BATTLE FOR THE BALL IN OUR GRIP 'N' GO CHALLENGE, THIS SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! |
Set 6713: Grip 'n' Go Challenge is the theme's second largest set, weighing in at 291 pieces and retailing for $29.99 (US.)
This one is a bit of an obvious oddball, being the only Race set not to feature any racing, nor even imply that a race could occur, instead it's a fight over a big ball with two stag beetle-like vehicles. I'll admit right away that it's my least favorite set in the batch, but let's go pick out why.
First of all, the minifigure selection is good, finally featuring the fourth driver in the crew, Lucky, with her green racing suit and crocodile emblem, she also sports minifigure-exclusive hair, piece #4530 in green. It only appears in this and 6617: Tough Truck Rally, it's a style all her own and she's a great figure thanks to it. When she's behind the wheel she puts on a not-at-all exclusive flame-printed helmet, piece #2446pr0051, introduced in 1998 in the Extreme Team subtheme, it lasted only four years in blue, white and green, with black being introduced on its last year of production.
Wrench is also here, featuring his same bandana and his same minifigure-exclusive red Ice Planet 2002 visor, serving as Lucky's formidable opponent in the arena of... big boulder... grabbing.
But as you can see on the left side of the picture we have a new addition to the Race cast, the Event Official appears here for the first time and reappears later in 6617: Tough Truck Rally.
He's all dressed up for the occasion, sporting the reasonably common tuxedo vest torso print, which debuted in 1990's lovely 6376: Breezeway Café, worn by the well-dressed waiter. In fact, the Event Official features the exact same head, maybe after ten years of waiting tables he decided to go get a new, muddier job with more excitement!
In fact he seems to have come prepared for mud, his dark grey legs could be long rubber boots, or even waders, so he doesn't lose his footing in the arena while waving his checkered flag around.
The flag is actually an awkward element, using the old antenna/flagpole piece, #3957a, in white for the handle. It does mean he can plant it down, but a checkered flag is to be waved.
Ideally our man's checkered flag would be on this piece, #30374, for a more comfortable hold and better wave-ability.
The problem with that, though, is that this piece at the time was almost completely relegated to transparent colors for lightsaber blades in the then-nascent LEGO Star Wars theme. It did exist in white in 2000, but it was only in a single Belville set, 5826: The Queen's Room, where it served as a pair of taper candles in some chrome silver wall sconces.
Just another unfortunate part-exists-but-isn't-readily-available-in-sets reality.
But onto the big bad beetle-mobiles, a more bizarre pair you'd be hard-pressed to find in any other competitive, presumably racing-focused theme that LEGO has ever produced. The two vehicles feature identical chassis construction and identical boulder-holder functions, but the rest of the bodywork and color scheme is unique to each one.
Let's look at Wrench's first, since it's the first one you build according to the manual.
The first and most obvious thing about this big weird grabbo-truck is that it's red, aggressively so.
The vehicle shares most of its color scheme with the Scorpion Buggy, featuring the same wheels as the buggy's back set and a return of the 2x2 transparent neon green slope brick, now doubled up for the sake of the play feature.
The set also features the same printed 2x4 slope as 6602: Scorpion Buggy, a lovely re-use of a great print.
But it's also flanked by one of the classic printed tiles of 90's Space, originally appearing in 1994 in the Spyrius and Unitron subthemes, it's a plain but very attractive tile, telling you which way the assembly is supposed to slide once you've got your hand on it.
Which does bring us to that weird string assembly you've noticed by now.
I've removed the top 1x4 plate here for some clarity, but the basic idea is that the eleven-stud-long string piece, #14226c11, is connected to both the Technic beam in front and under the transparent neon green slope at the back, kept in a light amount of tension around the 1x2 brick with handle, #30236.
The effect is simple, you pull back on the slopes (which are on the same 2x6 plate atop a series of tiles so they can slide) and that draws the technic beams back, with the pair of rubberbands at the ends of the beams providing resistance. It's a genuinely pretty good system, no fiddly gearing or anything, the most awkward thing is how the rubberbands are doubled up, it's hard to get them to sit nicely in the limited space. It at least easily facilitates the grabbing of the ball though the grip strength isn't quite enough to perform any fancy maneuvers with it, mostly the beams keep the ball in place and let the vehicle roll it around.
Also helping to facilitate the grabbing of ball is the rear of the vehicle, featuring a pair of piece #2744 in black that protrude just far enough to make a great place to put your thumb while your fore and middle fingers are on the transparent neon green slopes.
That feature alone makes Wrench's grabmobile much more pleasant to handle than Lucky's, not that hers is bad, but... we'll get into it.
Of particular note are two elements that are very rare, the pair of green #30236s are only in two sets, this and a Mixels set, 41572: Gobbol from that theme's ninth series. For such a ubiquitous piece it's baffling that its green variant is only in two sets, but more baffling that the two sets were released sixteen years apart. The other rare piece is the four of element #2458 in green, featured in only two other sets, the Life on Mars set 1195: Alien Encounter and the LEGO Harry Potter set 4706: Forbidden Corridor, both released in 2001. Given the piece's extreme commonness in nearly every other color (its rarity in this color only being shared with original brown and only surpassed by light violet, both colors now long-retired) the scarcity of the piece in green, a color that's been in consistent production nearly as long as the LEGO brick has existed, is bizarre.
Even more rare but significantly less bizarre is this set-exclusive printed 2x4 slope, featuring a yellow scale pattern on a black-to-green gradient, perfect for Lucky's crocodile theme.
It's flanked by another pair of printed arrow tiles which sit atop a pair of transparent neon orange 2x2 slopes, a counterpart to the neon green on Wrench's vehicle. This part is surprisingly rare, only appearing in three sets besides this, the Alpha Team set 6776: Ogel Control Centre, the Jack Stone set 4611: Police HQ and the LEGO Harry Potter set 4758: Hogwarts Express. Despite this obvious rarity, Rebrickable doesn't list it as a rare part, I guess four sets total is too many to be "rare."
Onto the rear of the craft, Lucky's is lacking in grippability compared to Wrench's, since your thumb will naturally rest either on the two transparent neon orange taillights or on the 1x2 plates with bars underneath them.
For whatever reason those two prongs on Wrench's vehicle really make the hold feel more definite and it's a shame Lucky's doesn't hit the same mark. I'd honestly go so far as to say Lucky's doesn't have as pleasant bodywork, either, both things are very hodgepodge but Wrench's has a little more flow to it.
But let's hop over to the side builds before we get too deep into the feelings.
The main side build is this score-keeper podium thing, a reasonably sturdy little build with a nice red railing to keep the Event Official from toppling into the mud.
The flags are waaay up there on a pair of lances, element #3849, a part as old as minifigures and even older than minifigure-scale horses. The instructions imply they should be on the other way, but that made no sense to me so I swapped them, Lucky's on the left to match the transparent neon orange light and Wrench's on the right to match the neon green one.
You could reasonably suppose these lights are like police sirens, they'd light up and spin around every time someone scores a goal, but then you've still gotta keep score, and we do that with these!
All three sets to use these printed numbers also use roughly the same method to display them, keeping them in their place with a pair of 1x8 plates with rail, part #4510.
The number prints are just a little more than three and a half studs wide, so the pair of 1x1 bricks with handles, part #2921, are used to give them a little extra room so their far edges are roughly flush with the rails above when all the way in, but stop them from colliding or being difficult to get back out.
But the much more important "side build" is this, the BALL piece, element #41250. This piece is actually a Primo piece being used here in a standard System build, that's right, not Duplo, but Primo, the even babier variant. It made its 1997 debut in set 2099: The Shape Sorter, along with similarly scaled triangular prism and cube pieces, which never made it out of that set in any capacity.
The ball, however, made its way into a fairly wide variety of Duplo sets, largely ones dealing with tubes like 2222: Spooky House and 2253: Big Tubular Playtime, and was featured primarily in primary colors, blue, red and yellow.
This particular ball is quite the rare and fairly expensive piece in original dark grey, all because of the other set it's in, the Orient Expedition classic, set 7418: Scorpion Palace. Because of its famous inclusion in a famous set, this ball can go for close to twenty dollars on its own, even more if it's brand new. It could conceivably be cheaper to buy this set, even new in the box, for less than the ball alone and ensure yourself an unscuffed sphere.
The last side builds are these, tires flipped onto their fronts with torches on top.
These are specifically used to denote the goals for either competitor, both pairs to be set parallel at either end of the "arena."
I can't give these any more time, they're tires with torches on top, you couldn't get any more "oh, yeah, sure" if you tried.
6713: Grip 'n' Go Challenge is about the oddest duck in a small flock of odd ducks and like I've probably made clear, I've got mixed feelings about it. It does what it's supposed to, absolutely, it is two vehicles that grip and then go, but how much they grip and how much they go is debatable. I feel like I'm well outside this set's demographic, even seven-year-old me was, I didn't buy LEGO for a multiplayer experience, I bought it so I could have fun on my own, I left the with-friends-type-play to outdoor activities, so this set probably wouldn't have resonated with me even then.
I can only play with these with my own self and from what fiddling I've done on my own it doesn't feel especially compelling. There doesn't feel like there's any counter-play available once one player has the ball, whoever gets it first gets to keep it since, outside of picking one vehicle up and trying to use it like a crane, there's no way for the other player to grab it.
It doesn't help that keeping score is a fairly cumbersome process, more than it would be with the aforementioned Soccer sets, since those had an actual, stationary play field akin to Foosball, the scorekeeper stand build is just off in space while the cars roll a ball around the floor, you'd have to stop and scoot over to it every time to somewhat awkwardly change the number out.
It's not a set I expected much from, it's not a set I particularly like, but I also recognize that I'd like it even less if it weren't part of the theme, part of my collection. If this were just a generic sports set I wouldn't have spent twenty clams and a decent amount on shipping to get it, I'd have seen it on Brickset, gone, "huh, weird" and moved on entirely.
I guess that's just the nature of collections, you collect to have all of a thing, even if some of those things are not-so-great, I've done it plenty of times in my life. I used to own every Crash Bandicoot game, up to the really bad ones like Crash of the Titans, I even had the spin-offs and the Game Boy Advance titles, but there came a point where I realized most of the games stunk to high heaven, I sold them off, and I felt all the better for it.
So if I was to give Grip 'n' Go Challenge a rating, I'd say it's Not As Bad as Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage/10.
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| CATCH THE BIGGEST AND BADDEST RIDES AROUND DURING THE TOUGH TRUCK RALLY, THIS SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, BE THEEEEERE!!! |
This the big one, the Race set to end all race sets (though going by set number it's entirely possible that Speed Dragster was the literal end) and absolutely the best of the bunch.
No sugarcoating here, this one is both the biggest and the best, which if you know your LEGO themes in the 90s and 2000s is a fairly rare situation, more than a few of the top dollar offerings paled to the smaller counterparts, but not here.
Tough Truck Rally is one of the two sets I have the box for, and it's a big boy, this box, so big it's pretty hard to get a clean picture of in my space!
It's actually part of the reason I bought the set at all, after finishing up my thoughts on 6714: Speed Dragster, I just so happened to end up on eBay, and I saw this; the complete set, the manual, the box and the unused sticker sheet. That right there was the clincher.
I paid about $85 totaled up with shipping and tax, but the cost of the set was only $65, a mere fifteen smackers more than the retail price, though the seller obviously didn't buy it for that much. That clearance sticker up there tells a story, one about shelf-warming sets in 2000 and LEGO's decline into believing the basic brick didn't hold as much appeal as it once did.
The back of the box features a whole slew of fun images, the tow truck and tools in play, a complete set overview and two alternate builds, one of a pair of beefy dragsters (the manual includes brief instructions for Lucky's, but not Barney's) and a log-hauling crane truck with super lifted suspension.
There's even an appearance of the LEGO Maniac from the LEGO Mania Magazine, asking, nay, telling you to sign up for the LEGO Club to receive two years' worth of magazines! Which was a really good deal in 2000, in the following year you'd start getting the Bionicle comic books!
The side flaps feature some very succinct examples of the suspension, one of the trucks being worked on, and how one of the side builds works.
The image featuring Lucky's truck is especially good, showing the main body at the same height even when the wheels are at wildly different ones, I don't think you could make a better diagram for the function.
A little love goes a long way, even standing ankle-deep in a muddy monster truck arena.
If you think minifigures have ankles, anyway.
Now here's our cast for the set, Barney, Lucky and the Event Official all make their second appearances in this set, but we've got a new addition on the far right.
It's tempting to just call him an Octan Mechanic, as he's not at all a unique figure, this exact configuration of head, torso, legs and even hat is found in twelve sets besides this one, including 1992's wonderful set 6397: Gas N' Wash Express, a which features almost two of him, except that the other figure with the same head, torso and legs has long black hair instead of the red ballcap.
This set is technically the figure's final outing, barring a 2001 re-release of 6397, 6472: Gas N' Wash Express and a 2004 re-release of the 1994 set 6597: Century Skyway as 10159: City Airport.
The only time this figure stepped outside of the Town theme (Race is still technically Town, after all) was in the 1993 Trains set, 4537: Twin Tank Transporter, which is absolutely plastered with Octan branding from the train car to the truck to the six fuel barrels that all bear an Octan logo. Said barrels even use printed versions of part #3941, #3941pr0004, sparing them the fate of most stickers on rounded surfaces, you love to see it.
But with the box and figures out of the way, let's get onto the titular tough trucks, in the order they're built in the instructions.
Lucky finally gets to ride her signature vehicle, as far as LEGO Stunt Rally is concerned. In that game's manual it's dubbed the Mud Monster, which is pretty good, but compared to Turbo Tiger or Scorpion Buggy, it's sorta not in keeping with the theme.
Since there's no official documentation on these sets besides the manual, I've bandied around the name Crusher Croc, or maybe Colossal Croc or maybe the... Cuddly Croc, I don't know.
But whether it's the Mud Monster, the Crusher Croc or the Green Ganglia, this is a formidable truck boasting plenty of cool bits, let's take a look at the front end first.
The front of the truck features a huge exposed engine, an already common design made even more beefy with the inclusion of red-hot transparent neon orange studs and grilles on top of them, along with a pair of 1x2 plates with handles, part #2540, to help fill out the gaps between the 1x4 brick and the 1x4 brick with studs on the side, part #30414. This particular #30414 is special as it's one of two sets to use it in green, the other being the 2002 Racers set, 4589: RC Nitro Flash.
Green being the ridiculously ubiquitous color it still is and has been, it's wild that it this piece never turned up, especially when Creator found its stride in the early 2000s and began cranking out creature and robot sets of all shapes and sizes, you'd think at least one lizard would've called for studs-on-side construction, but it never happened.
I would also like to point out the pair of transparent neon green 1x1 plates used as headlights, a bold choice that I nearly didn't feature here as my copy of the set came erroneously with a pair of transparent yellow headlights, a fact I didn't even realize at first as it came to me partially assembled. I told a buddy about this, saying it, "wasn't a big deal" and, "I probly won't replace them" and then about five minutes later I'd already made a BrickLink order for three of the piece along with some random minifigures.
It was worth it!
But here we are again with Lucky and her vehicles and their surprisingly rare pieces, except this time these 1x4 side panel pieces, part #43337, are completely set-exclusive in green! ...Unless you count the modren variant, part #15207, which is similarly exclusive to 2017's 60155: LEGO City Advent Calendar where a single instance of the piece serves as the... awning to a cocoa stand, maybe? For the poor performance of the newer piece I'll call these pieces exclusive anyway, especially since they have exclusive stickers.
The truck features an open bed, no tailgate on this gator, and the 3x2 wedge bricks on either side of the rear end (parts #6564 and #6565) give it a little swoosh that's very pleasing.
Before getting onto the suspension, we've got to point out the wheels, part #6582, in old light grey that are yet more nearly set-exclusive pieces on this truck.
In fact, I'm giving the exclusivity to this set as the only other set to include it is a 2002 Racers set, 5927: Racers Picture Frame, which was a LEGOLAND exclusive set and is, as the image suggests, mostly a pile of Technic elements and hoses clapped onto a pair of brick-built pillars with a single set of vestigial-looking wheels just sitting behind it. I say it doesn't count as a real set, and anybody who paid cash money for that thing hopefully has had time to think about their life choices with more than twenty years in the interim. Or at least put a nice family photo of their trip in it, made it a memory, not a loss.
The suspension on the two tough trucks included is of identical design, even with the difference in bodywork, and popping the wheels off makes it easier to get a look at. A pair of Technic beams, the same #32316s as seen on the Scorpion Buggy, on either side fit into place on two 2x2 bricks with pins (part #30000, also seen on Scorpion Buggy) that are stacked on top of another set. This keeps the rubberbands from pulling the beams too close but also keeps them in light tension so that the vehicle is always raised up nice and high.
Strangely the set does not utilize the Technic pin with towball, part #6628, that's used for the rubberbands in Scorpion Buggy and Grip 'n' Go Challenge, instead using the plain black Technic pin, part #2780. This gives the rubberband a slightly annoying amount of play when it comes to getting it situated, but doesn't impact the function at all. Just makes it harder to make them sit right and not get twisted.
This method of suspension is simple but absolutely perfect, each wheel being on its own beam means that they can bump over even the most uneven terrain (like a rumpled up blanket on the floor, the easiest way to terrain as a kid) and keep the body staying mostly level.
The wheels being completely disconnected from the others is the real strength of the design, compare it to the 2018 City set, 60180: Monster Truck, the second of four sets to bear the name, those being 2014's 60055, 2020's 60251 and 2024's 60402. 60180 stands above the other three entirely because of its rubberbanded suspension, but it's still horribly restricted compared to those found in Tough Truck Rally, since not only do the pieces involved keep it from going too high, they keep it from going too low as well.
While lowering these trucks will send the wheels up past most of the bodywork, 60180 is kept reigned in by not just the chassis, but also the fact that both its sets of wheels are connected by axles, meaning there's no individual movement like on the trucks here.
Granted it's not particularly realistic for a monster truck to flatten out like this, or to have wheels that all spin on their own somehow, but it's also not realistic for sets called Monster Truck to mostly be crummy little four stud wide wimps with wheels barely any bigger than the ones on the back of the Scorpion Buggy like 60055 and 60251.
All that being said, Lucky's Crusher Croc or Mud Monster or whatever is absolutely one of the best vehicles in the theme and might nearly be my favorite. The green and yellow color scheme is great, the suspension is perfect and the sticker design is top notch, but unfortunately I like it just a tiiiny bit less than what's next.
LEGO Stunt Rally may strongly imply that Barney's signature vehicle is the Speed Dragster, and I'm mostly inclined to agree, but if it were up to me, it'd really be this.
It's front-and-center on the set's box, it's featured on the box and manual art for LEGO Stunt Rally, this is the Race theme's best and brightest right here, a big blue and white behemoth of a vehicle that does everything Lucky's truck does but just that little bit better.
The manual for LEGO Stunt Rally calls this the Ice Monster, an appropriate name in the game, since it's driven by the ice world champion, Glacia, but there's no ice here, just mud, this proud vessel needs a superior name, and I'll tell you why shortly.
Barney's monster truck has some of the coolest stickers in the entire series on its big transparent blue windscreen piece, the one on the front slope matching the printed 2x4 slope on Speed Dragster with those big ol' angry eyes, but the stickers on either side reveal them to be big ol' angry shark eyes. The huge jagged teeth curved down into a snarl look great, even if getting the specifically triangular stickers into the right spots was really awkward and I still haven't really got them on right.
The big headlights are a treat as well, and whether intentional or just misprinting there's some variance between the two, they're not just a perfect mirror to the other. Getting them on straight was also a real pickle, but at least I get to be safe in the knowledge that I put them on kinda wonky, not somebody else.
A quick look at the side shows off some more of the contours, granted by the three pairs of parts #6564 and #6565 in blue, two at the back, four at the front, with a pair of 1x3 bricks to bridge the gap between them.
The wedge bricks technically made Lucky's truck six studs wide but Barney's truck really embraces that with its front end and its big rear wing, the same part #30259 used as the wing on Speed Dragster but in white with a pair of blue grille pieces.
The technically-the-same-but-kind-of-wider size is a bit of a trick, as is this truck looking bigger than Lucky's, when the chassis and bodywork are, wing not included, shorter by two studs. The wheelbase is the same length due to the suspension being identically designed, but the truck itself is smaller. And for some reason the same wheelbase but with shorter body lets it do this.
It's not important that it can do this, but it's interesting.
Can't do it the opposite way, either, just this way.
But I was saying before I got onto stickers, Barney's truck needs a name better than Ice Monster, it needs something... sharky.
Because this is a shark truck, the windshield says it's a shark truck, and if that's not enough for you, look at this.
There's an obvious temptation to call this thing the Megalodon or something, but that's the name of an actual monster truck, one that is also in LEGO Technic form in set 42134: Monster Jam Megalodon, which is admittedly a much sharkier truck, but I've never been a Technic man outside of Bionicle so it doesn't matter to me.
There's some decent options besides that, Slammer Shark, Smasher Shark, maybe even Dark Shark, in reference to the alternative name for the famous 1989 set, 6285: Black Seas Barracuda, or to a lesser extent the 1991 set, 6679: Dark Shark. It's pretty vibrantly blue and white, so Dark would be a major misnomer.
Name or no name, this truck is without a doubt my favorite of the entire theme, maybe it's just because I like Barney, maybe it's because it's on the box and manual art for the game and I just internalized thinking it was the coolest-looking thing ever when I was eight, and maybe it's a really, really cool monster truck with a super strong color scheme and great stickers.
You can pick whichever one you like, it won't change my decision, this is the top shelf of Race vehicles right here.
Before moving onto the next truck, and the theme's last vehicle in the fleet, I want to touch on these flags which have largely been out of frame in most of the previous images.
This is a fascinating piece, part #30322, entirely because it's the exact same as part #2569 but with a pennant flag molded onto it.
It saw a lot of use in the Town subtheme; Arctic, where it was often stickered up for the occasion, primarily in blue but once in red in set 6578: Polar Explorer, which was only ever available as a pack-in bonus with 6586: Polar Scout.
Now you might wonder why Lucky's flag is red, red not being in any part of her truck's theme besides the quartet of red Technic pin connectors, part #75535, and the answer is simple; this piece was never released in any other colors.
You had red and you had blue and that's it, both were in a decent handful of sets, blue more than red thanks to the aforementioned use in the Arctic subtheme, but these colors were the lot. A yellow flag, like the truck has in LEGO Stunt Rally, would certainly have spruced it up, but it simply didn't exist. The blue flag would retire in 2001, and the red flag would pop up extremely sporadically until 2006, ending the part's run with just shy of twenty sets to its name.
But at last we come to the third of the tough trucks in the set, by no means a monster, but every bit as much of a toughie. This six stud wide tow truck is built to haul the competitor's trucks around in the event of an accident, raised up high on its four stud wide chassis to plow through the mud even with a load in tow.
Of other particular note are the twin fuel tanks (presumably fuel tanks) on either side between the wheels, made with a pair of part #6081 in old light grey, unfortunately not completely round tanks but close enough.
The back features a pair of tool racks, capable of storing a full compliment of LEGO tools including two spanners (one open, one not), hammer, screwdriver, oil can and drill, everything the mechanic needs, hopefully.
Also back here is the tow boom and hook, an extremely simple bit of construction made of two hinge pieces, the 2x2 base and the 1x6 arm, along with the towball socket for the hook. To support the entire assembly and let it haul the monster trucks around is a 4x2 slope keeping it braced up, not complex, but not too "Juniorized" like some others at the time, I.E., set 6423: Mini Tow Truck also from 2000. I know it says Mini right on it, but I don't see that thing hauling anything.
Up on the base of the boom is a nice little barrel of gas, complete with Octan-themed striping made with the 2x2 round plates, and a handy dispensing nozzle on top.
Speaking of, does it bother anybody else that the updated version of this piece, that being part #4599a, doesn't have a hole?
Look, it doesn't, part #4599b doesn't have a hole, it's got a solid end! How's a man supposed to use a water cooler or ketchup dispenser or fire extinguisher built with one of these things when it doesn't have a hole for anything to come out of?
I know it doesn't matter, I know you're supposed to use your imagination in any case, but why'd they take away the hole?
Now, I was wrong, I had seen this piece, in set 6474: 4-Wheeled Front Shovel,
another extremely simplified set from 2000 that I actually did own as a
wee man. Not a great set, even at the time I found it lacking, too many big chunky bricks and a very wimpy digger arm.
Anyway this is element #30182, and it's a piece you've probably never seen, even if you're into this kind of thing, since it lasted a total of two years in production. The piece feels like a weird truncated version of part #32083, missing its fourth set of studs and slope, it even features the same open underside.
This one in white is set-exclusive, and features one of the three identical Octan logo stickers, the same one used on the two 2x4 bricks on the sides of the cab.
The cab is actually worth touching on, entirely because it's really wide, but features basically no room for the driver to exist. The sides are built out of 2x4 bricks and layered with 2x6 plates running from the front to the bed, meaning our mechanic has to sit squeezed in between them.
Most modren vehicles are six studs wide and give the driver two studs' worth of elbow room to either side, this chunky truck offers no such comfort.
Also notable is the railing piece that forms the back of the cab, part #6583, it's a very strange but effective part usage, allowing the #30182 to rest on top of it since the railing extends a half-stud beyond the studded portion.
And while it's not competing in the rally, this tow truck is plenty tuff-e-nuff to hitch its hook into the handles at either end of the monster trucks and haul them around the arena, an absolutely stellar play feature. The chain included on the tow truck's roof can also be lashed around parts of the truck for greater towing stability, or any other thing you wanna pull around for whatever reason.
It's also more than equipped to hoist up the trucks for modification and repair, even putting on new wheels is easy-peasy with only a little fiddling of the tow boom.
I'm not entirely sure the tools included are up to the task for the huge suspension and wheels of the trucks, but the mechanic seems like a guy who just makes things work.
This tow truck feels like a set on its own, remove it from Tough Truck Rally entirely and it's still a great big solid slab of truck that could fit into your average cityscape, with some minor modification of the boom to pick up trucks that aren't almost three times the height of your average minifigure.
If I can dock it points for anything it's the extremely un-spacious cab, even the super-chunky chassis construction isn't enough to keep it from being a worthwhile addition to the set and to the Race fleet as a whole.
But now it's time for side builds, three in to-to for this set, the first of which is this log-roller hazard thing. I've got no idea if this is an actual thing in monster truck rallies, but the concept is reasonably simple.
You drive a truck up the side ramps on either side, then onto the logs, trying to maintain balance the entire way across, and if you don't- the tires roll into the gap between them and it gets stuck but good, likely requiring a tow out. It's a pretty neat little thing, but unless you roll the truck up there without any guidance you're bound to make it across just fine, but that's part of the pretending necessary.
The other, even rarer piece is element #6259, the half-cylinders in old brown, which are completely set-exclusive in the color. If you ever need to make some very symmetrical old brown trees, this set would be the place to start, the eight included can already make a decent couple of logs as seen in the alternate build on the back of the box.
And the next build is this big wall, built primarily on top of an enormous 4x18 brick in black.
There's some transparent neon orange round brick columns holding up some flame-spitting cones at their tops, because almost every Race side build has flames coming out of it somewhere, it's like Adventurers and guns, they just go together.
On top of the long tiles are three stacks of yellow and black 2x4 bricks, and their use isn't immediately clear, but that's because this is meant to be used with the biggest "piece" in the entire theme.
Part #30498 is a big ol' ramp, I assume made with the same vacuform method that makes baseplates, including the wide array of nice big raised baseplates throughout LEGO's history. The piece features some nice tire tread markings and is topped with a pair of scuffed hazard stripe stickers, but it really is just a big ramp.
It did make its debut here in this set but would go on to be featured in three others, all of them in the Racers theme, including set 5599: Radio Control Racer in 2001, set 4596: Storming Cobra in 2002 and set 8363: Baja Desert Racers in 2003, which would be its final appearance. Strangely, 5599 includes three of these ramps while 8363 more sensibly includes two, one for each vehicle in that set.
But let's see it kind of in action here.
The wall and bricks are pushed up to the front of the ramp, like so.
The truck drives onto and up the ramp, also like so.
The truck drives off the ramp, crashing into the blocks and sending them flying before it touches down on the other side, also also like so.
It's a bit of a tricky thing to use properly, the trucks' bouncy suspension can be an issue when it comes to getting them to go straight up it and landing squarely on the wheels is a whole other story, but if you look at it through the lens of "cool truck go vroom" then even the crashes are part of the fun.
The final side build in the set is this wee little winner's podium, complete with gold (yellow) cup for first place in the big monster truck rally race.
This pair of 2x2 and 2x6 bricks are very nice little prints, but are remarkably rare given their obvious utility in racing-themed sets, something LEGO has never been a stranger to.
Parts #3003pr0057 and #2456pr0002 made their initial debut in this 1998 set, 6327: Turbo Champ, a set which has a clear winner entirely because there aren't any other competitors included. The only other appearance is in the 2000 Tour De France themed promotional Telekom set, 1199: Telekom Race Cyclists and Winners' Podium. A very odd history for some very good printed pieces, glad to have them here in this set, as it lets me do an impromptu ranking of the trucks!
The Event Official obviously doesn't get a place on the podium, partially because he's the official and isn't competing and partially because there's barely room for three people as it is.
But just like Barney does in this set, 6617: Tough Truck Rally takes home the well-deserved gold in the Race theme, as I said before it's both the biggest and the best, packing loads of play for its price tag, with the massive ramp piece, huge wheels and tires and three big (for the time) vehicles. The only reason I can say enough nice stuff about this set is that it's hard to not repeat what I've already said, this is really just a solid set and it's absolutely the one I'd recommend if you even begin to care about the theme, in fact I'd go so far as to say you should get this and 6519: Turbo Tiger and 6602: Scorpion Buggy, you'll have every racer, both supplemental figures and all the best vehicles.
It's easy to build up a bias once you start collecting something, but even now that I've had time to come down from my "I own all of a set of things" high, I still like these sets a lot, and absolutely love 6617: Tough Truck Rally. But would I recommend the sets at all, even with what I said before?
That's tough.
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| I'm definitely not doin' this (with apologies to R.R. Slugger.) |
This is a pretty general (and overly specific) overview of the sets, not a recommendation or an endorsement or anything like that, that'd be dumb on my part.
Are these good sets? Absolutely, some are even great sets, but unless there's some secret sect of Race fanatics out there, they're not classic sets by any means. It genuinely is not a theme largely cared about, even people who comment things like, "this game was my childhood!" on videos of LEGO Stunt Rally might well be people who didn't even know there were sets. I didn't know there were sets until much later in my life, there's a decent chance I saw them on store shelves at the time and completely glossed over them in favor of still available Adventurers sets, or more likely the original run of Knight's Kingdom.
In fact there's a much better chance I saw them in LEGO's Shop at Home catalogs and still didn't really notice them, and I pored over those catalogs for hours, just thinking about how nice it'd be to have all those cool sets, cool sets I never got my hands on because... asking for things, especially ordered things is hard when you're small.
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| A roving sleuth gathers much dust. |
But I did decide to put my sleuthing cap on and really go back and comb LEGO's magazines for any sign of Race content (that still sounds bad!) in 'em, and the results were largely unsurprising.
Thanks to kind people scanning and uploading old magazines and catalogs to the Internet Archive, I was able to sift through a few issues of both LEGO Mania Magazine and LEGO Shop at Home, and I found only three issues out of ten for that year (including both the bimonthly Mania Magazine and the quarterly Shop at Home) had anything Race in them.
Here we have the September/October issue of Mania Magazine, largely featuring the third outing of the Adventurers theme, Dino Island.
The Race theme gets a tiny spotlight on page 9, sharing a page with a "sneak preview" of one of the LEGO Studios sets that would release later that year.
This half-a-page features 6714: Speed Dragster and 6616: Rocket Dragster, together like they should be, with an only slightly modified finish line with the flags and barriers facing the other way so the stickers can be seen.
It's especially funny that even in this single spotlight in this single magazine, Chip is once again getting beaten by Barney, the man cannot catch a break. But hey, it's nice to see the drivers named.
To make whatever this is supposed to be. No hate for Simon Bearse, wherever he might be now at the ripe age of either 29 or 30 at the time of this writing, but it's not an especially compelling design. Hardly his fault, though, he was five, and as you can see there it says his design inspired the one seen here. That was the standard practice, any alternate or combiner builds sent in were punched up by actual LEGO designers, very rarely were they one-to-one with the pictures sent in.
But hey, at least this thing uses the pieces from Speed Dragster's launcher!
But also Chip isn't wearing his helmet and the side panels from Turbo Tiger are missing their stickers. weird.
LEGO Stunt Rally gets the whole of page 17, while the Alpha Team game gets 16, surprising to learn that the game came out a year before the sets did on that one.
The ad features what appear to be beta screenshots, the garage and the UI for it are very different, the assets shown in the tiny example track look unfinished and weirdly lit, and even Mr. X is looking kinda weird with his red background.
This ad also doesn't feature any reference to the PlayStation version that never materialized, while all the set manuals do, indicating that the development on that version had already been canned by the release of this issue, seeing as the game's north american release was in early October while the sets were released in the summer.
And we know this because of the Summer 2000 Shop at Home Catalog, the cover of which features the Race logo on the barrier and Lucky in her helmet on the far right, next to one of the blue-suited figures from the Arctic subtheme.
Pages eight and nine are a two-page spread of every Race set, even depicting the two largest sets in the same big muddy arena, which does mean there's two Luckys and two Event Officials occupying the same general space, but you know how it is.
The racers and their names are also featured, although this particular scan cuts off the top of page nine, we'll be able to see it more clearly in the next catalog.
On page 50 you can see LEGO Stunt Rally in the bottom left corner, marked as coming soon along with LEGO Creator: Knight's Kingdom and Alpha Team.
Race gets another two page spread on pages eight and nine almost identically to the previous catalog, except 6519: Turbo Tiger is conspicuously absent, having been moved to the "All Under $10" section of the catalog on page thirty-eight, but it's moved for a reason.
Besides that, some of the text in the descriptions is changed, and 6616: Rocket Dragster and 6714: Speed Dragster are now labeled as including pull-back motors instead of launchers, much more of a selling point.
If you'd used this deal and gotten 6519 to go with it all, you could've had the entire set range for not even a hundred and fifty bucks, provided the shipping and the taxes weren't as overwhelming as I assume they'd be.
But more importantly is this, the full version of the racers' images, very nice photos of each. Lucky and Barney's image is featured on the top of the box for 6617: Tough Truck Rally, but the images for Chip and Wrench aren't on the boxes for either of their sets as far as I know, I haven't got them to confirm or deny either way. The other Race-related item is the now-released LEGO Stunt Rally on page thirty-three, but only for PC, meaning the Game Boy Color version hadn't come out at the time. Which is fine, because it's really bad.
Sadly the Holiday 2000 catalog hasn't surfaced online, so I can't confirm if Race had any real estate in it, but I can confirm that in the catalogs of 2001 it absolutely did not. 2001 was a very big year for LEGO, the releases of Life on Mars, Bionicle, LEGO Harry Potter and even more LEGO Star Wars sets defined that year, and the Race theme is almost nowhere to be found in its catalogs.
The January 2001 catalog, primarily featuring the Life on Mars theme, has two sets, 6519: Turbo Tiger and 6602: Scorpion Buggy, both in the "All Under $10" section on pages twenty-eight and twenty-nine, with LEGO Stunt Rally available for both PC and Game Boy Color on page twenty-seven.
The Summer 2001 catalog, primarily featuring Bionicle or the My Own Trains theme, depending on the cover, has only one set, 6519: Turbo Tiger, once again in the under $10 section on page twenty-nine, and both versions of LEGO Stunt Rally on page thirty, both marked down ten dollars from the previous catalog.
The Fall 2001 catalog, primarily featuring LEGO Harry Potter, has both 6519: Turbo Tiger and 6602: Scorpion Buggy again, in the under $10 section on pages thirty-six and thirty-seven, and both versions of LEGO Stunt Rally on page forty-three, with the PC version now marked down twenty dollars from its initial price.
The Holiday 2001 catalog has only 6602: Scorpion Buggy in its under $10 section on page thirty-eight, and LEGO Stunt Rally is nowhere to be found, LEGO Creator: Harry Potter taking its place.
The very last sign of anything Race-related is on page thirty-three of the January 2002 catalog in its under $10 section yet again, set 1272: Blue Racer, for some reason labeled as "Extreme Racing S." After that, nothing.
I'm glad Blue Racer just so happens to be in there, though, since it's a great segue into the sets that put my claim of owning every Race set into question.
The four sets I didn't pick up, and may not pick up, are the smallest ones, all of them very basic and lacking in any unique parts, the kind of sets I could theoretically knock together with my own parts collection, but let's take a look at them anyway.
6618/1282/1272: Blue Racer/Turbo Racer features Barney, riding an extremely tiny car, not much bigger than go-kart sets of the time or even today. Weighing in at a paltry 23 pieces and costing around $2.99 (US) at initial retail. There's not much to say, it's a 2x8 plate with wheels, but it does have a whole, proper Barney on it.
6619/1283/1273: Red Four Wheel Driver/Rough Rider features Wrench on an even smaller car. Weighing in at only 20 pieces and costing the same as the previous set, this set uses a 2x6 plate for its chassis, but features big fat tires for some kind of off-roading. Wrench here is wearing a red helmet with a totally black visor, lacking his usual lovely minifigure-exclusive red one, bringing the set down quite a bit in comparison.
6707/1284: Green Buggy features Lucky on a somewhat less tiny car than the others. Weighing in at 23 pieces and costing the same as the others, Lucky's buggy is unique in that it has different sizes of tire, but aside from that it's basically the same as Barney's tiny car. Lucky here is mostly intact, but has no printing on her helmet, thankfully her transparent neon green visor is still with her.
You've likely noticed that all of these have multiple set numbers, the former two were sold in boxes under two different numbers and names, and the latter set was only sold in box under a single number and name. But then what's up with that second number?
And where's Chip, for that matter?
He's in japan, that's where he is.
Yes, set 1285: Yellow Tiger is a japanese-exclusive set and was sold as a pack-in with Kabaya Candy, as were the previous three sets under their 1282, 1283 and 1284 numbers, 1285: Yellow Tiger completing the consecutive set of numbers.
Weighing in at, once again, 23 pieces, it features the only aquatic vehicle in the theme, and in fact the only vehicle to not be a big four-wheeled car of some sort, Chip even comes with one of the big old life preservers, part #2610, for the occasion. He also dons a standard helmet for this set, since his usual one can't be worn with the life preserver, a reasonable change, and he does still have a transparent yellow visor.
Kabaya and LEGO collaborated multiple times in the mid-90s and early 2000s, several sets in the Ninja and Rock Raiders themes were also japan-exclusive, with plenty of other non-exclusive small sets being sold there in polybag form. Kabaya actually has a history of including toys with their candy, stretching back from just after the second world war (the one with the coupla bombings at the end, you know the one) in 1952 they began including small children's storybooks with their candy, and later in 1978 began including small cars and model kits.
Their collaboration with LEGO began in 1997 and ended sometime in 2004, and covered almost the entirety of LEGO's set ranges at the time, even including most of Bionicle's Turaga sets and some RoboRiders sets that are even worse than the regular ones!
But as for why I don't have these sets, the answer's simple, they're not worth collecting. Not to me, anyway, I'm no die-hard, I'm no aggressive completionist, willing to track down every last bit of a theme to say he's got it all. These sets generally go for more than even the middle-of-the-road sets due to their scarcity, I could buy the two cheapest sets for less than one 1285: Yellow Tiger, there's nothing drawing me to these.
If I saw them at my usual reseller, oh, sure, I'd think about it, but as it stands there's no way I'm shelling out another forty, closer to fifty, dollars for a batch of teeny-weeny polybag sets that if I sincerely wanted to I could piece together out of my own collection.
I don't want to, and I won't, but I could.
 |
| Time to wind down, I think. |
I could go on, I really could go on, I had thought to mention more than even all this, but I think it's time to bring this to a close, with my main, prevailing thought; Race is a good series of sets and barely anyone cares about it.
I don't mean that in some kind of wildly dour way, I'm not propping this subtheme up as some underdog that was unfairly treated and ended before its time, that's silly.
It's toys.
Toys come and go, even the toys you think are great may just stop getting made, out of the blue, sales are down and the company moves on, it's the way of it. LEGO had lots of loss and lots of success during the turn of the millenium, Race was a blip on the timeline and no more than that, even chock full of unique prints and unique colored parts like I've made abundantly clear so far.
The thing to me is that Race is just... nothing. It's not a modest and fondly-remembered success, it's not an enduring classic of the millenium like Rock Raiders with a sizable fanbase and scores of custom models and even a complete modren remake of the video game made by the dedicated fans of the theme, it's by no means a failure and somewhat undeserved laughing stock like Galidor, which for all its "faults" introduced the still-prevalent system of ratcheting joints and was a great theme of action figures in its own right, and it's definitely not an overwhelming hate sink like Jack Stone, the epitome of "juniorized" sets that makes your average LEGO fan bristle up at the slightest mention.
Race just is. You don't see MOCs made for it, the best you'll see is minifigures in someone's builds having the heads from the cast, and those aren't guaranteed to have been from the Race sets, they could be from the handful of Racers sets that re-used the head prints. It's also definitely not the kind of theme LEGO would reference out of the blue in some cheeky, mildly hollow way, like in one of their enormous Ninjago or Monkie Kid sets with their signage references to Bionicle and Rock Raiders, even a terrible theme like Znap gets a reference in set 80036: The City of Lanterns, and Galidor has a printed torso reference in 70620: NINJAGO City, as well as a piece of abstract art in 10297: Boutique Hotel. Race isn't some failure to look back on and laugh about, and it's not a nostalgic classic to bring up and say, "remember the good times?" Race just is.
These aren't the best sets ever, they've got their little problems of the time, but I like them a lot. I haven't got any misplaced nostalgia for these sets, I didn't own any as a kid, I only had the game which while I have fond memories of, wasn't one I spent hours and hours in unlike LEGO Island or even LEGO Creator.
So Race is good and I like it.
And its game is better than Alpha Team, LEGO Racers 2 and LEGO Island 2, not a high bar, but it's true.
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