I bought this for my 8yr old daughter. She is new to hot wheels, and had them at the very top of her Christmas list. I kept looking at this particular set over a month, going back and forth because she had already specifically requested other different launchers, extra track, the booster pack, and extra cars. Since she was starting from scratch, and this looked really cool and had that wow factor, I thought this would really tie everything in and make for creative play. I was worried that it wouldn't work right tho, but I finally pulled the trigger and purchased this, and I'm glad I did. This does work as described. The cars have no problem getting around the loop, but some cars can slow down shortly after completing the loop, so if you're adding a lot more track to this, I'd put a booster or another launcher not too far after the cars clear the hoop. The launcher that shoots the car up work great. This was the part I was most concerned with since I'm new to Hot Wheels, as well. My daughter did get a car stuck it the thing that the car shoots up to. She hit the launcher too hard, and the car jammed before making the curve. We did have to help getting it out, and she said she hasn't had that problem since. The cars do drop off from the blue release part of the set and land onto the lower swirling slide as it's supposed to, more times than it doesn't. Again, it's something that looked too good to be true, but it's not. I personally was pleasantly surprised with this set. I really wasn't sure if it was going to work right at all! I waited almost a month to review this because I wanted to see if it held up, and so far so good. My husband did have to put it up, so it was measured correctly, so please keep that in mind, because an adult will most likely need to do or help with the initial setup. He said it wasn't as difficult as he thought. Probably took 30-45minutes. Other than the original setup, my daughter and her neighbor friend have been able to build onto this setup by themselves and have changed the add on pieces many times with no problems. You can see the add on parts that she connected from her other Hot Wheels gifts connected off to the left of this tracks build. Those extra pieces that don't come in this set are connected right after the yellow loopty loop part ends in my pictures. She's had no problems adding the additional tracks, the white curve, the curve launcher, the booster pack, etc to this existing set that stays up on our wall. This set really has that wow factor. It's a big box, which is great for gifting, and of course will make any hot wheels fan light up. We chose to set it up in our finished basement's t.v./play area so we wouldn't have to worry about putting it up and down often. We did take it down once, and were able to reinstall it just fine without needing additional supplies. Again, a surprise for me. We have not taken it back down since tho. I'd recommend trying to find a place to put this where you don't have to put it away after each use, if possible. It is possible to put up and down however, but it could get a little tiresome. If you don't have a spot to leave it up, I'd get some extra double sided sticky foam or sticky velco pieces to have on hand incase you wear the original out. My daughter really likes this, so I do recommend it. I hope my pictures help give you an idea of what to expect in person.
