my god it's town

This is so weird

The seven pseudo-Town themes of 1997–2000, ranked by how Town-esque they were:

1. Outback (1997): Pretty similar to previous Town sets such as 6552-1 Rocky River Retreat (1993) 6563-1 Gator Landing (1996). Not really a full theme, since the largest set was 167 pieces.
2. Space Port (1999): Basically a rehash of Launch Command (1995).
3. Res-Q (1998): The only thing that doesn't seem "Town" about it is the color scheme.
4. Arctic (2000): At least it's a mostly realistic theme. Not really similar to anything that had been done in Town, though.
5. Divers (1997): See Arctic.
6. Extreme Team (1998): Some sets (6568-1) were similar to Town, others (6580-1) weren't.
7. Race (2000): Had a tie-in video game, and one of the characters had green hair. Doesn't sound like Town to me. (The only thing that keeps it close is the presence of Octan in this set.)

But of course at the time, these were readily differentiable from Town (and City Center) in that they weren't juniorized.

I had this set. I don’t remember being especially fond of it even as a kid.

That blue truck must not be tough enough...

I love it, I’m obsessed with monster trucks and rally trucks right now so I’ll see if I can this for a good price!

I have this set, in pieces. The only thing that interested me was the tow truck and those brown cylinder pieces.

When I saw this set in the catalogs in January 2000, I will admit I was interested in getting it. But I felt that same way about a lot of other 2000 sets, like the Slave I and the whole Knights' Kingdom range. In the end, I got none of them. The more I looked at the cars and saw the set in-person at Toys R Us, the less enthused I was by it. The damage done to the Town line had soured me on most mainline Lego themes. RACE tried to evoke the glories of race cars past with a turn of the century EXTREME twist, but it wasn't enough for soon to be twelve year-old me.

The year 2000 was just an overall downer for me with Lego, the first of its kind. I only got three Star Wars sets from that year (including the UCS TIE Interceptor), a couple of the Arctic theme (the Mobile Research Base actually being obtained on clearance in summer 2003), one small Knights' Kingdom set, and three of the Roboriders. By the end of the year, I was gasping for any hints of something better on the horizon. Thankfully, 2001 would prove to be monumental.

I LOVED these sets. As a kid, something about the colored racers, the nice different types of vehicles, and in this one especially, the amazing suspension on the car, all made this theme quite interesting. I should look for them and build them again...

I liked the drag racer with the lion torso, in fact all the torsos were cool with their animal mascot prints.

One of the few sets in 2000 that I liked. I still have it

Okay, 3 town sets from 2000 in a row, what is going on here?

I admit that I bought these for big tires and minifigs, and I cannot lie.

I didn't even know for the longest time that this theme was branded as part of Town. I'd only ever seen it referred to in relevance to the Stunt Rally video game, so that was what I thought the name of the theme was... so it baffled me when I couldn't find any theme by that name listed here on Bricklink.

Never had any of these sets myself - I was *tempted* when I found 'Grip 'n Go Challenge' going cheap several years after the theme had ended, but didn't go for it in the end - though I do have the minifigure of Lucky here, who I traded with a friend for way back ^^

I've just discovered a love for Lego monster trucks. Having rejected the entire theme when new, I am now seriously looking at this very set. The outrageous aesthetic is actually reminiscent of Monster Jam.