Today I’m reviewing both the Carrera – Go!!! GT Contest Racing Set and the Carrera – Go!!! DTM Speedway Racing Set. If you’re into race track sets that you assemble yourself and then drive cool cars on at blinding speeds, then you’re sure to love what we’re looking at today. Read on for full details of each set and how much fun I’ve been having racing lately!
What are Carrera – Go!!! Racing Sets?
Carrera – Go!!! racing sets come in a variety of different themes. The sets I’m looking at today are based on stock car racing vehicles that look a whole lot like the real thing that you’d see at a major auto racing event (sponsorship decals and all). Even so, Carrera – Go!!! sets also come in other popular branding themes as well, such as Disney’s Cars franchise and the enormously popular MarioKart. In fact, I have those very sets here right now and will review them for you fairly soon. But today we’re looking at the GT Contest and DTM Speedway racing sets, which are snap together electric racetracks that you assemble yourself and then race the included cars on. Each of these sets includes 2 very realistic and cool looking cars, and the cars are controlled by wired-in handheld controllers with a drive button as well as a turbo boost button for when you need a little extra speed (such was when going through a loop, as one of today’s review sets has). The cars go extremely fast and do take a bit of getting used to (so you don’t continually run them off the track), but boy are they ever fun to drive!
Playing with Carrera – Go!!!
I think I should probably mention that I never had a snap together racetrack set growing up. It’s not that I wouldn’t have wanted one; it’s just that other toys were always a higher priority, so I just never asked for one. Thus, at my current age (well over 16!!) I finally got my first opportunity to build a racetrack set and hit the road. And honestly, I never realized what I was missing out on. These sets are fun!
Assembly was fairly straightforward, though there were a number of small bits and pieces that needed to somehow be dealt with, so the whole operation took me nearly half an hour to accomplish. I suspect that anyone with experience assembling similar racing sets would have had it together in half that time. In any case, it was well worth the wait. When I finally got the cars on the track, I hollered for my wife to come in and race against me, and then it was game on!
I was really quite impressed with just how fast these little cars could go. I was especially impressed with how fast they went when I hit the turbo boost button. I mentioned the controllers above—what they look like is there on the right. You may notice a little clip with a ribbon on it underneath the main drive button. This clip prevents the drive button from going all the way down, thus limiting your speed as long as it remains in place. This is kind of a beginner’s mode feature, as the clip can easily be removed. In the video below, you’ll see how fast I had these cars going, and I never once removed the clip. In other words, I wasn’t at full speed (not even close), and the cars still look like a blur when you see them zipping by. You may also notice that the controllers are quite ergonomically shaped, meaning they’re super easy to use and you never quite get tired of driving your miniature racing cars.
Of the 2 sets I had here, the longest one (the DTM Speedway Set) was 8.9 metres (or 29.2 feet), so really, really long. It also had 2 different loops in it, which would have been really fun, but the most I could set up in the space I had to work with was one loop. I tried all of the different cars from each of the sets I’m testing (including the MarioKart and Cars sets) and found that everything worked extremely well. There’s just enough of a challenge to mastering these things to make the overall experience as rewarding as it is fun. Even though I have no previous racetrack experience to compare these Carrera – Go!!! racetracks to, I can’t imagine any other tracks being more fun than these. I really enjoyed playing with them.
Examining the Video Evidence
Please take a couple of minutes to enjoy my brief video overview of these very cool Carrera – Go!!! racing sets. I only assembled one set to test, but I show bits and pieces from both sets and I show you just how fast these things can go. I also show things like the handheld controllers and the loop that these cars can expertly maneuver. It’s truly something to behold, not to mention a real hoot:
Final Thoughts
Now that I’ve finally tested a couple of these amazing Carrera – Go!!! racing sets, I see what I missed out on growing up. Thankfully it’s never too late to experience the fun and excitement of a modern toy classic. The Carrera – Go!!! sets are serious racing fun for kids of all ages, although their recommended age range is 6 years old and up. My only reservation with these sets at all has to do with the amount of space they take up. If you’ve got plenty of floor space to lend to it, then I say go with the longest track you can find. After all, if a 4 metre track is really fun, then a 12 metre track would have to be really really really fun. In any case, I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up one of these sets. I don’t know if the stock car versions are my own personal favourites, but the DTM Speedway set is the longest one I’ve seen (too long for me to even set up in my own home), so you really can’t go wrong with that one if you’ve got the necessary real estate for it. Happy racing!
