Everyone, place your bets.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Maxbricks14 said:
"Everyone, place your bets."

Are we limited to the go-carts, or can we pick some random spectator walking to his seat?"

Both. But make sure a food stand doesn't pop up. They will all go rushing to that and will be queuing for 10 minutes before they reach their seats!

When reel film cameras were a thing, one could go to the races in a dinner jacket, and your own imagination would conceive the ‘lap’ part of the track.

I wonder if the red and white drivers were mixed up in this photo. And that unibody trailer! I had no idea it was in production this late.

@MeisterDad said:
"
I wonder if the red and white drivers were mixed up in this photo. And that unibody trailer! I had no idea it was in production this late."

Maybe. Or maybe someone decided it provides better contrast for the image that way.

@kfr said:
" @MeisterDad said:
"
I wonder if the red and white drivers were mixed up in this photo. And that unibody trailer! I had no idea it was in production this late."

Maybe. Or maybe someone decided it provides better contrast for the image that way.
"

It seems it was designed for the latter, going by step(s) 5 of the instructions.

I wonder if any of the 2,156 people who own this set have ever been tempted to MOC in a blue shell, say, or some banana peels, as cute little references

@Arnoldos said:
"I would like to add something, but everything about how this set is so magnificent has already been said, so I'll just add: it could have used some extension sets with baseplates to build the lap however one might have wanted to."

Indeed, but lap-printed baseplates would have been a finacial risk, I guess. You had to settle with a Monaco-style city-course and by regular street plates. Wich, realistically, haven't been cheaper back then, either.

Had this set as a kid, one of my faves.

I know F1 cars used to be a lot smaller in the 80s, but this seems a bit of a stretch....

Also, that 33: A bit of Max Verstappen foreshadowing?

Victory screech!
Olololololololololololololololo!

i bought this set for Xmas 2000 (!!!), when a small toy shop close and sold all those old sets that it had on shelves... at the original price! My greatest bargain ever!

Got this from a second hand haul without instructions.
Had a lot of fun sorting and building this but sadly I lack the display space so like almost all my sets it's now stored in a box.

One of my favourite sets from my childhood. Many happy hours creating F1 races with my brother. Still have it, complete with instructions.

@Librarian1976 said:
"I had the smaller version that came out the year prior. This one was huge… like an airport-sized set."

I just got that one also. I'm hoping to get 6395 in the collection soon too. :)

Great set. I loved it as a child. I am still holding it with box in perfect condition!

@biffuz said:
" @raven_za said:
"OK, @Huwbot is on a roll :-)

And just check out that full page spread on https://images.brickset.com/library/view/?f=catalogues/c89uk4 pages 14-15, or https://images.brickset.com/library/view/?f=catalogues/c90uk pages 16-17."

This was also the golden era for catalogues!"

Absolutely!

Red spaceman is showboating.

I remember loving this set so much, I too had the smaller 6381 but never got 6395. This had the alternate build of an oil drilling platform as well from memory?

VICTORY!!!

I'm the opposite of a number of folks here, I have this one but not 6381. VLR is an incredible set, it's 100% what you need for a couple of kids to play together and act out all sorts of fun scenes. I got this in a used bin a few years back, it's such a sweet build and it's going to become the main racing area in my future city. Close off a few streets (or maybe an airport runway), maybe build another food trailer from 6345, add some fences and spectators, and it's a day!

@raven_za Looking at the race page, I have almost all of those sets now. Need the Metro Park and the gas station, but when the time comes, I may have to recreate that (sans bent baseplate for the hill).

@scottd said:
"I remember loving this set so much, I too had the smaller 6381 but never got 6395. This had the alternate build of an oil drilling platform as well from memory?"

Correct; I believe you can find a picture at Back Of The Box Builds.

Well… wow. I don’t think I ever knew before now that this set existed, and yet it looks like a fantastic one, deserving of classic status. What a terrific-looking set.

YES! MORE GREAT NOSTALGIC SETS!!!

@scottd said:
"I remember loving this set so much, I too had the smaller 6381 but never got 6395. This had the alternate build of an oil drilling platform as well from memory?"

Yup, that and an airport are actually on the front of the instructions!

When I was a kid i wouldn't even dream about this set. It seemed so big, so plentiful that it was out of my parents budget, even the imaginary one. Today it can still hold its own, it really is almost complete play toy (almost because you need to get some more road plates to make the track complete). It's quite surprising lego never did a worthy successor to a race track set since.

@Brickalili said:
"I wonder if any of the 2,156 people who own this set have ever been tempted to MOC in a blue shell, say, or some banana peels, as cute little references "

https://brickset.com/parts/6464535/banana-no-3

The epitome of "they don't make them like they used to".

This set is extremely *complete*, save for road tiles if you wanted to make an actual track from baseplates.

Very little of the set's part count goes to waste, most details are functional and everything necessary to play out pretty much every scenario a child can imagine is here, plus a generous number of figures.

Probably one of the best classic town playsets, up there with the Public Works Center in my opinion.

@huw January 28th was International Lego day, did not mentioned? And no Lego Bilder app review?

I loved the old catalogues from back then. I would imagine the entire LEGO town rising from these sets. You could arrange them in your head and year over year since they came with base plates it was easy to see a sprawling town come to life. While the builds are simple the entire style and presentation of those days just has that charm that cant be beat. It is like LEGO knew it was LEGO and everything just scaled to function within itself. Fun times.

Always wanted this, especially that weird '70s trailer element.

I now have a lot of those white space panel things (which didnt even know existed back then) and the trailer piece. Maybe I should try how much I can assemble it?

Instead of this I eventually got 6397, still glad to have it :D

So nostalgic! Used to own 6381 when I was a kid... Missed those sets ...