Hot Wheels Crash Course Starter Track Set Review

Hot Wheels was a big part of my childhood. Growing up in the 1970s we had Hot Wheels Sizzlers which were cars that had small batteries that were recharged with a charger that looked like a gas pump that held two D batteries. Now I have a six year old daughter and I wanted to share the Hot Wheels excitement with her. Browsing Amazon using the key word "Hot Wheels", I came across the Hot Wheels Crash Course Starter Track Set and was excited by the motorized action of Hot Wheels cars flying around the track on a collision course.

The Hot Wheels Crash Course Starter Track Set is a figure eight loop with two jumps in the middle. It uses two motorized wheels or Booster on one loop to propel the Hot Wheels cars around the track. You have the ability to change the trajectory of one jump so it puts one car on a collision course with another. Please note, only one car is included with this set and the two required D batteries are not included.

I ordered the Hot Wheels Crash Course Starter Track Set on the spot. It arrived two days later as I am subscribed to Amazon Prime and was automatically upgraded to two day shipping.

I have been telling my daughter how exciting Hot Wheels sets are so as soon as it arrived I opened it and started to put it together. The first I noticed is that the setup instructions leave much to be desired. The instructions are designed so that the ability to read is not required but even I had difficulty putting it together so I don't believe a child would be able to put it together without help.

Once together there was a learning curve in keeping the cars on the track, the car that came with the set works great but not all Hot Wheels cars work good with this set. If fact my daughter and I created a game of sorting the cars based on if they worked or not. It was also fun to create near misses of cars across the jumps by altering the trajectory of cars pressing down on the Hot Wheels sign. It is important to have fresh batteries installed otherwise the Booster will not have the power to push the cars around the track. Even with fresh batteries my daughter and I were only able to get four cars to run on the track at the same time.

Another word of caution, once assembled do not take the set apart as you have the potential of breaking the ends of the track and other plastic parts with each assemble/disassemble cycle.

All in all, this was a good purchase, despite the set's shortfalls, it provided my daughter and I with hours of entertainment.

Hot Wheels Crash Course Starter Set in action!