Toys R Us has Milton Bradley's "Nascar Champions" game clearance priced at just under $10. At that price, it seemed well worth exploring.

As has been discussed before, this is a variant of the game system of Mayfair's "Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix" and MB's "Daytona 500," using dice instead of cards.

There are 5 dice, numbered 1 through 5, with the same number appearing on all six faces (at least after you have correctly applied the stickers!). Five faces have a background color corresponding to a car color, the sixth face has a checkered flag background indicating that a chance card is to be drawn and appropriately played. Each player, in each turn, rolls all five dice, and chooses three to act upon, moving the appropriately colored car in turn by the number of spaces indicated. One typically is advancing opponents' cars in addition to, or instead of, one's own, but still may benefit, through (concealed) sponsorship cards. Once each lap, a player may choose to reroll the dice.

The cars are about two inches long, roughly HO scale. With buyer-applied stickers for markings, they end up with a visual effect somewhere between simple game tokens and fully decorated diecast miniatures. In play, I found them less unsatisfactory than I expected. Nine stickers per car (hood, roof, trunk, two sides, four wheels) times seven cars (providing some alternative cars; only five appear in a given race), plus the dice stickers, plus token stickers. This may not be a good choice for those who whine about having to finish game assembly. Obviously Hasbro/MB is one of those struggling underfunded game companies that can't afford to finish a game themselves before they sell it. One hopes that eventually they will join the big time.

The board is intriguing, in a bass-ackwards sort of way, since because of the relatively large cars, the track is simple, and very short in terms of space count. It is just 24 spaces around, three wide on the straights, two wide on the curves. Its simplicity quickly suggests replicating in proportion for diecast miniatures: overall size need be only about 11 by 6 times the length of the miniature. A track for 1/43 diecasts would fit on 5 foot by 30 inch table top. I'm thinking in terms of modular track sections, like the old Hot Wheels race game, and will be trying this shortly. At the other extreme, a track sized for Formula De tokens could be printed on a piece of legal size paper. Very portable.

There are some gaps in the rules, though they should not be disruptive for players willing to work out reasonable solutions together. There are some other areas where the rules don't seem strong, and alternatives suggest themselves. I anticipate some happy experimentation.

With this, and with McGartlin's "Stock Car Championship Racing Card Game," my 1/43 diecasts will be getting some real game play. What fun.