Customer Reviews

Hot Wheels Speed Racer Sky Jump Track Set

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I purchased this to spend quality time with my 9 year old daughter who loves Speed Racer, probably because I am a huge fan.

Setup was pretty easy and straightforward. My first impression is how in the world will this contraption work? Well, it does, and it is lots of fun.

We only use the Speed Racer line of cars, so we don't know how this works with other Hot Wheels. Most times, cars will run lap after lap after lap without incident. Occasionally a car will derail, but hey, some drivers probably just can't handle the course! We've had 4 or more cars lapping at the same time, often for long periods. The four intersections provide for some spectacular crashes!

The height some of these cars fly into the air is amazing. And yes, they are deflected, drop down into the funnel, then into a spinning tube/tunnel which most of the time gets the car back on its tires for another lap, though sometimes maybe backwards!

Bottomline, lots of fun, giggles and squeals as the events unfold on the course. Easy to setup, seems very durable, the seams between track elements are pretty tight and smooth.

Detach the tower, and the whole unit can be moved in one piece, preserving the setup, for storage in a closet, making setting up again even easier.

There are collisions, car derailments, etc. so expect your cars paint to chip and scar, but to us that adds character.

My only complaint is that I wish it provided for an AC Adapter option. We're not sure yet how much usage we'll get with a set of 4xD batteries.

I thought that there was no way this thing would work the way it says it does on the package, but it really does. Buy an extra pack of cars and get 4 of them going at once, they shoot around the track and fly up in the air, and every once in a while you'll get a good crash.

We gave this to our 4 year old for his birthday, it's his favorite present. It needs a little adult supervision, every once in a while the track gets a little out of whack and needs to be adjusted, but other than that he can play with it by himself.

Make sure you have new batteries for it, otherwise the cars won't make it around the first turn and will just fall off.

I gave it two stars for education because I figure it can help kids develop a little bit of physical intuition, concerning momentum and projectile motion. Other than that, there's not much to learn here.

My 7 and 8 year old boys received this toy just after seeing the Speed Racer movie. It is a joy to watch them try to time the cars so that they collide at the various intersections. They love it when the cars leap into the air and then drop into the funnel that puts them back on the track. It is battery powered and the batteries seem to last for quite a while. You can only use the Speed Racer Hot Wheel cars, and they are all different in speed and balance so the boys like to see which ones can finish the circuit the fastest. The engineers that designed this toy must have had a blast doing it. They did a great job putting together a fun toy that my boys keep coming back to.

One of our friend's sons had this and our son loved it. We bought it and it was a real chore to put together. Also we found that it has to be set up on a hard floor - forget about having it work right on a rug. Two other friends bought this and had the same experience. They eventually moved it outside and taped the pylons to their outside patio deck. The problems are that the pylons need to be really steady for the cars to make it around the track. If the cars don't make it around the track you don't see the fun part of it launching into the air, returning to the bin, and self aligning in the tunnel.

This is a lot of fun when it works. The other "complaint" is that very few Hot Wheel cars actually are suitable for the set. It comes with one but the real fun is having a bunch going at the same time. We combed through our 50-75 cars to get 3-5 that would work. Of course you can buy the ones recommended but who wants to do that after getting it, and laborously setting it up, while your son is axiously waiting for more?

I bought this for myself, frankly. It is amazing. Far superior to the Hot Wheels tracks of my youth. I sit and watch amazed as the cars shoot around at such high speeds that they hurl almost two feet into the air, slowly turning as they fall into the funnel for another round. Amazing.

Each of the four loop segments is different and fascinating to watch cars scream through. The cars go through the center hub frequently, creating lots of opportunities to crash - but they go through so fast that a split second difference avoids collision. It creates heart-skipping excitement when you run two or three cars - four can't really make it, but it's fun to try.

The rotating tunnel is a very clever mechanism to drop the cars onto the track one at a time, usually right-side up. I also like it as a design element because it is reminiscent of the scene in the movie where Speed is walking through a tunnel into the stadium and the announcer is saying "All drivers report to your cars". Nice touch.

Glitches: the cars occasionally come out of the tunnel upside down, not too often though, and actually it's one of the few times you get to do anything other than watch. You have to use full power batteries or the cars won't get enough speed in the first segment (I plugged a DC wall adapter from Radio Shack into the battery compartment). The funnel plastic split after a week - which is lame; I fixed it with some clear packing tape, but its still irritating. We bent the Mach 6 axles, which is too bad because it won't make it around the track now (we got some other cars, but prices are pretty steep for the Speed Racer Hot Wheels). You do have to re-adjust the track position periodically - it helps to make the first segment as rigid as possible, otherwise its springiness sucks too much of the cars' inertia and some don't make it.

So, I like the track a lot. Really. I'm content to drop cars in and watch them loop the loop and jump and crash occasionally. But that's about all you can do with it. And it's loud. My boys (6 and 4) turn it off and run the cars around by hand, pretending to be Speed or Grey Ghost or Snake Oiler (they love Snake Oiler, which is a hoot). That's the only downside of this automated toy - you have to turn it off to add pretend and imagination. But _I_ still like it on.

We bought this for our 4-year-old, and it is nothing short of excellent. It works all the time, and never has needed to be taped down. With regard to the negative reviews, after reading them I must conclude that there are a lot of stupid people out there, and you really have to read the reviews carefully and take them with a grain of salt.

I happen to be an engineer by trade, and this is really an exceptional piece of engineering work. My only complaint is that you have to buy special cars which are plastic and therefore lighter than usual, but Mattel feels the need to raise the price on these cars and resort to the gimickery of specifying they are of a special "scale". They appear to be the same size as all other Hot Wheels cars, but they are lighter, that's all.

My kids (and I) are enthralled by it, and have fun seeing how long multiple cars will run on it before they crash into each other. It's easy to put together, fascinating to watch, and when the kids want more interactive Hot Wheels play, we put up the traditional orange track and send the regular cars flying.

I got it for $22 at the Mattel Toy Store, which makes the experience even sweeter!

Bottom line: buy this toy, get extra cars, try to get it at a Mattel store for a great deal, and prepare to be entertained.

My son is 3.5 and LOVES Hotwheels. He saw this track online and kept talking about it... so he got it for Christmas! He loves it. He's used 3 or 4 other cars on the track as well and all but one worked.... too heavy I think. The Speed Racer car that comes with it is nice and light.... goes racing around the track. My 3.5 year old squealed with delight as the cars raced around. I recommend it, and would buy it again! Runs on 4 D batteries and it's a little loud but he's a happy kid, thats what we wanted!

I bought this track for my 4 year old son.
The major points:
This track was complicated, but really not that hard to put together as long as you have/follow the directions.
I do NOT recommend setting this track somewhere you can not leave it for a while, but your child will be willing to play with it more than once, and it won't fall apart seconds after you assemble it.

This is the only hot wheels track that I have purchased that actually keeps the cars on the track, I was impressed.

This is the best track we have gotten for our 5 year old. Although you can only use certain cars on the track, they really do some amazing stunts - both backward and forward.

This looked really neat & many reviews mention that it is one of the only Hot Wheels tracks that actually work so we decided up on this for a gift for our son.

Pros:
1) It does work about 75% of the time.
2) when it does work it is pretty neat to watch. Get two cars & they crash & that is fun for about 5 minutes. Both my kids scream & squeal & love it for a short time.

Cons:
1) The cars fall off the track.
2) It only comes with one car. My son has probably 150 Hot wheels & none of them work on the track, you have to buy the special, all plastic Speed Racer cars.
3) The track is big & nearly impossible to re-locate without taking it apart, it has to be taped down to a spot so it is stable enough to work.
4) It is outragiously expensive! I bought this for a lot less on sale at Toys R Us (the cost of 2 new DVD movies) & I feel like I still spent too much!

It is a very limited toy, it requires no thinking or creativity & the fun is fleeting - 10 minutes of entertainment value if you are lucky.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless they have a chunck of change laying around & don't mind a flimsy big toy to step over...