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Articles
Published: August 7, 2002
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| I can hear the screams, the cries for help. I hear voices of thousands praying for something, anything NEW in HO. In larger scales of slot cars, almost every new release is more than just a new body on an old chassis, even the chassis is new. In HO, the chassis change almost as often as the track itself, not very often. It wasn't until Playing Mantis released the T-Jets that HO fans had anything new to get excited about, and the funny thing was, it wasn't a new idea, just an old idea re-released. |  | BSRT has been doing wonderful things to HO slot cars now for years. Starting by producing high performance tune-up parts, BSRT moved on to taking existing chassis of cars readily available on the market, applying all they knew about making cars fast, and offering these complete cars or rolling chassis to the public. Most famous is their G2 and G3 cars based on the TOMY A/FX Super G-Plus chassis, but recently they applied their magic to the Tyco 440-X2. What they came up with is now available as the BSRT High-Performance 440-T2©.
The car is packaged in a resealable protect-pack type blister, with BSRT card inside, proudly displaying the car. The info on the package proclaims that the T2 sports a redesigned ceramic motor and traction magnets, silver electrical system with improved parts, and superior performance, 36% faster than a 440-X2 car! | Originally released in 1989 as a Tyco 400-X2, the body on the T2 I had the privilege of testing is virtually the same. The car is very clean and though appears rather tall for a Formula 1 car or Indy car, it looks very nice on the track. The magic of this car is not the body, but what's underneath.
As mentioned, the chassis features new ceramic magnets and traction magnets. Not seeing brass or copper components in the chassis is a bit of a twist, as everything is a whitish silver in color. Silver, a much better conductor than brass or copper, is not normally not used in modern out-of-the-box race cars due to the added cost. You get what you pay for, and BSRT knows this. In addition to all the motor and electrical improvements, it seems as though BSRT has added what look to be silicone tires to the rear. All this effort is only worth it if it pays off on the track. |  | | The first crack of the throttle was all it took to tell me that this car was something special. Let me cut to the chase and say that this is the smoothest, quietist HO slot car I've ever run. I expected a powered magnet, but what I found was a mild mannered wolf in sheep's clothing. You have to drive this car, but no more than any Super G-Plus car. The T2 has a much more usable powerband that allows much more than the two speed (stop and fast) racing that many new cars seem to exhibit. From speed to stop is not instantaneous, but tapered by a moment of coasting that I found very delightful. |  | Though I lack the proper equipment, or even a large enough track to compare top speeds or lap times with my Super G-Plus cars, I did find that racing on my smaller 4-Lane track was very competitive between the T2 and the Super G-Plus. There was no obvious winner between either, but the most fun award goes to the T2. This car is a winner in my book, and makes HO racing fun again. In my opinion, this is the way modern slot cars should run, and my hat is off to BSRT. Finally, something to get excited about. | -
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