It’s very cool when the major manufacturers bring out a race set that covers a racing venue or theme. We have seen SCCA Trans Am tracks, Indy 500 tracks and back in the day we even have race sets that were titled after Monaco or Watkins Glen. This is the first race set, to my knowledge, that commemorates a specific event. In this release, the 46th Annual “Night Under Fire” at Summit Motorsport Park in Norwalk, Ohio is the theme for the race set. Very cool indeed and will, no doubt, be a unique collectors item in the future. Auto World’s drag set release (SRS354) is a complete drag race set with all the goodies too bring the excitement of straight line racing to your scale racing hobby. We even get two of John Force’s race team funny cars ready to compete, using the tried and true Auto World 4-Gear chassis. Let’s take a closer look at this set.
The box shows all of the parts and pieces nicely packaged and secured. The big white box houses the electronic starting gate and finish gates. The list shows all of the parts you will find in the box.
There are some unique parts that come with this race set, In the picture above, the top track sections are the electronic starting gate and finish gate, There is also a 3 inch straight section with no rails. This “dead strip” is placed after the finish gate to provide a non-powered, shut down section of the drag strip. The last piece shows the “end caps” that are placed at the beginning and end of the drag strip to give it a nice, finished appearance. There are two of these end cap pieces.
Here’s the track’s layout map and instructions on how to operate the electronic start and finish gates.
This diagram shows how to install the six “AA” batteries needed for the electronic start and finish gates. (The batteries are not included.)
The set includes the new adjustable power supply that can be set at 23.9 volts, ideal for getting all the power you need for drag racing. There are also two thumb style controllers and the two John Force Racing Funny Cars. We will take a closer look at those in a minute.
We will take a closer look at the electronic start and finish gates and how they display the drag tree and “win lights”.
We will start, logically enough, with the electronic start gate. Line up your Funny Cars making sure not to place them over the light sensors at the starting line on the track. Then when the racers are ready, with controllers in hand, push the red button on top of the gate, This starts the drag tree lights, The sequence starts with the white staging lights coming on and pausing for a brief moment…
Then three yellow lights will count down towards the green light. The countdown can show on light at a time (the count down tree) or all three can come on (pro tree) before moving to the green light. You can switch between the count down tree and pro tree by holding the red button until you see the lights flash. This will change the setting to one type or the other.
Make sure you wait for that green light to come on. If you jump the start, the sensors will detect your early start and bring up the red foul light on the lane that started too early. This will reset and you can be ready to race again.
When both cars get a clean start, the green lights are displayed. These will rest after a couple of seconds so you are ready for the next race.
So we got the starting process squared away, but how do you figure out who won the race? Well Auto World has that taken care of with the electronic finish gate that displays which car crossed the finish line first. There are light sensors at the finish line that detect which car crosses first. The picture below shows each of the lanes being the winner. The lights reset after a couple of seconds and you are ready to see who wins the next race.
Next we will take a look at the funny cars that come with this drag set.
2023 Camaro Funny Car Blue-White John Force #5 Peak
2023 Camaro Funny Car Blue-White Robert Hight #2 Cornwell Tools
This is a great drag set and the electronic start and finish gates add a level of excitement to each pass you make. You can even recreate the action from the 46th annual Night Under Fire event, racing down your hallway! Look for this race set in your local hobby shops or favorite web stores in October, 2023.