This is not going to end well.
Most of Live and Let Die-Cast! is dedicated to the cars. The castings, the features, the rarity and value, the hauls. I initially got into die-casts by bringing my old collection down from the attic to give to my son to play with. Well as I've gotten into them, first taking pictures and then (well, um, kind of spiraled a bit) and my son has as well (he has a HW poster on his wall to keep track of which cars he has/wants) I decided to buy some track. Unfortunately I don't remember where we bought this one. Target probably? Maybe Fred Meyer? In any case, I can't find the exact track on Amazon which is actually ok, because ...
this track is awful.
(Note: Thanks to the FB group for pointing out this is the Loop and Drift track)
Whenever I make trades on the HWEP for vintage cars I am usually surprised at the condition they are in. My very first trade was with VOLVOSAURUSREX for some 70's police cars. Some of which I already had from my youth. His version of "playworn":
My version of "playworn"
You may also have seen this one from my youth:
Anyway, I grew up playing with my cars hard. Crashing them in to each other, leaving them in the yard, and of course, sending them down the track.
If you note in that commercial the driving force to "defying" the laws of gravity is to simply have the car high up and let it use the momentum of the fall to go through the loop. It worked in 1971 and it works today. But the Loop and Drift track wants none of that. It's first fatal flaw is the "launcher."
Instead of having the car go from up high, it sits on level ground and you press a button to get the car to launch. This is silly and unnecessary. The cars almost always come out too fast or too slow, and making the loop without going off the track becomes a 1 in 10 (at best) shot.
90% of the time:
The second error Mattel has made with this track, and also likely contributes to that massive failure rate, is the switch.
An Aston on its way towards near certain demise.
If you look closely at that picture you can note the yellow piece of plastic that funnels the car either on to the loop or towards the drift part (not installed, because its really stupid). The yellow plastic switch is in the lane of travel for attempting a loop. The reasoning behind this seems to be that you do one loop and then the switch makes the next car go into the drift. Why kids can't just do that manually seems odd, at best.
In any case, having the car hit the switch right before going into the loop has the effect you might expect: it slows and usually changes the trajectory of the car.
This R8 never had a chance after hitting the switch:
The very final aspect I would like to point out is just how incredibly cheaply made this is. Yes I probably only paid $12 or so for it, but the panel gaps put my 1969 VW Beetle to shame (and you could actually see the roadway below from the backseat). So many launches go off course:
Luckily, one did result in this awesome pic:
Still, there is clearly no reason for the Civic to be grabbing (some sweet, sweet) air at that point.
In closing, this track sucks. Go back to using a car dropped from the height of a doorknob into a loop. I give this product a solid: DON'T BUY!
Now for some more photos!
Siku (for Ben)
RX-7 (doomed)
Mini (probably the furthest along the track without crashing it ever made)
And finally......
SUCCESS!