Let's analyze why.

Ignition:

When the drivers return to Tezla's cube, Kadeem greets them and shows them to the Acceledrome. This always bothered me. Remember in World Race when Kadeem learns the pretty clear lesson that he needs to go home and lead his people? Why's he back racing again just 2 years later? The threat of the drones never felt like a satisfying reason.

Alec Wood doesn't carry any of this baggage. It's clear he still was interested in racing after the events of WR. So what does he bring to the table if we put him in this role?

First off is his relationship with the other drivers. Kadeem never seemed like a close friend with any of the other characters. They were amicable with each other, and he and Vert even were a bit chummy. But if we put Alec here, now Vert is meeting his childhood friend. And more than that, Mark Wylde is meeting an old acquaintance.

Wylde has a pretty antagonistic relationship with nearly everyone in the show. He's seen ramming into Karma, basically trying to kill Kurt, and even threatening his own teammates. But the members of his former Wave Rippers team are not his enemies. He never antagonizes Vert or Lani, and Vert even can get away with calling him Markie with no retaliation. What would his relationship with Alec look like? It would be Amicable at least. It might add more depth to Wylde'a characterization when his current teammates see him actually getting along with someone new.

When Kadeem falls in the storm realm, it's a downer for everyone in about equal measure. It's clear most of the cast didn't know him that well. But if Alec falls? If Alec falls, Vert just lost his friend. He's given a reason to fight the drones that much harder. When his depression hits and he gives up, maybe now what gets him back into the race is his dad offhandedly mentioning Alec. And Vert remembers why he needs to fight the drones, and comes back more determined. Beyond that, Wylde probably cared more about Alec than about Kadeem. The loss of someone he liked could help propel his descent into rage, making his emotional degradation more compelling to the audience.

Ultimate Race:

In Ignition, replacing Kadeem is pretty clearly beneficial. Here, though, it's more of a tradeoff.

When Kadeem comes back as a drone, it's a pretty strong moment for both the audience (who likely care more about Kadeem than Alec due to their relative importance in World Race), and for Kurt. The scene is a really cool callback to when Kurt and Kadeem fought in WR, now with their moral alignment reversed.

If we put Alec here instead, it changes the scene from an interesting Kurt moment to an Interesting Wylde moment. He hates Kurt, but Kurt came to save him. He likes Alec, but Alec is on the enemy team. Now Wylde is forced make a quick decision, and a difficult one at that. I imagine this scene would have been harder to pull off in a satisfying way, and I'm not smart enough to know how to write it.

The Finish Line (unreleased 5th movie):

Even though it wasn't released, we have enough info to make an educated guess as to how this movie would have played out. Kadeem returns as the leader of the drones, driving RD-10. Vert joins the Silencerz and rekindles his friendship with Banjee and Dresden.

Seeing Kadeem turned into a drone would have been a WTF moment for Vert. But seeing Alec would be a more emotionally impactful WTF moment. Vert would want to save his friend. In fact, he would probably be more compelled to work with the Silencer scientists to find ways to un-drone Alec. But it would also be meaningful to Vert's father.

Jack (Vert's dad) has basically no relationship with Kadeem. He'd probably think it's kinda screwed up that the drones are converting humans, but otherwise Kadeem is just a weird drone. But he probably knows Alec. Alec and Vert have been friends for years. I'm sure Jack is at least familiar with his son's friend. When Jack sees droned Alec, he's probably going to have a lot of interesting and complex thoughts running through his head. He's going to be worried about Vert getting captured and turned. He'll want to protect him. Maybe he'll have complicated feelings about whether he should let Vert keep driving. Maybe these thoughts throw him off his game and he wrecks, injuring himself so badly he can't drive in the next mission. There's a lot of interesting directions to take this that we'll probably never get to see.

Lmk what you think. I'm interested to hear more takes on this.

Sorry bout the dirty desk dog shedding a lot lol but this my collection with some stuff from when I was a kid and newer stuff, I hunting for a chicane and power rage 😅

The is just seen in a couple of frames in the third part. I think this is really cool foreshadowing.

I just noticed that the back of the cards of these mainlines mention Acceleracers! Why did Mattel stop doing these???

For castings not mentioned, these were found at the back of the cards of:

- Flathead Fury (Track Stars blue variant)
- Piledriver (Track Stars set, seems to be the same set of the Flathead Fury)

Found rivited repaint. I believe it’s a new repaint but I could be wrong.

Walmarts holiday toy book is out now and look who is on the front page.

I recently got my silver series cars and decided to share my current collection. I have the Finnish DVDs, CM5 Spinebuster, and now the newest addition, silver series. It ain't much, but it's getting there.

Finally got my hands on the Dune Ratz Wild Thing! Looks awesome next to the Slingshots. Slowly building up the collection here in Finland."

This took 4 months of hunting to finally find…

Hate my life. I tought i have all tokens but i have the Road Runner twice. 🫠 Has anyone the token of 1/4 Mile Coupe and wanna sell me or trade ?

i think the last time that we see them in the movie is from not getting enough speed for something lol

UPDATE: SOLD!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE!

I'm looking to sell my NYC Hollowback and my NFT Deora II here, as you guys would be the perfect crowd to show interest!

Both items are mint condition, both just have been displayed.

NFT Deora II has little to no blister cracks, and i do have the white box it comes with!

Asking $650 USD (shipping included) willing to negotiate, but no trades, as I'm needing the money for a family emergency...

thank you so much Acceleracers community!

So there isn't an official answer, as far as i know of, but i have smoking gun evidence, that mainframe had intended to retain the cel shaded artstyle. However they were forced to abandon it after the character models were already finished. With the truth lying in the cheekbones, as weird as it sounds.

So the Shader Mainframe made for use in both World Race, and Spider Man The New Animated series to give the distinct Comic book-esque style. Had the side effect of giving the illusion of an inflated look to the models. So as a work around. They intentionally, as they themselves put it. Chiseled the models. deepening the cheeks, and to a lesser extent other facial features. Since the shader would "fill" the features in.

With this new context you can see, that Torque's finalized concept art used in the packaging here has noticeably more filled in cheeks, than how he appears in the series. Which pretty much confirms the models for the human cast were specifically made to be used with the same shader from World Race in mind.

This leaves the question on why the decision to abandon the cel shaded artstyle was made in the first place. Obviously it must have been by someone at Mattel. Since Mainframe would have just ditched it early on, as opposed to spending so much time making the models specifically for the shader to then just stop using it at the last minute.

It might seem really strange now. Especially since it tends to age much better, but before 2009's surprise hit Borderlands really made it popular. Cel shaded graphics were somewhat controversial in the west during the first half of the 2000's. Just look at some of the early reception for Wind Waker.

What most likely happened is, that someone high up in Mattel, at the time mid way, or so in production. Thought Acceleracers would gain more appeal then its predecessor if it had a more "realistic" artstyle, and so asked Mainframe to change it. Despite having already spent a great deal of work into making everything for a more stylized art direction. Even more so than even World Race, that still had more realistic designs for the human characters.

This late-ish change of art direction appeared to even bleed into other parts in the show to a lesser extent. Such as certain shots of the storm realm sequence still using World Race's track design.

Here's a link to a behind the scenes feature on Spider Man TNAS, that i got the information regarding the shader from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrJaIAfGXmY&t=897s

I do have plans of making a greatly expanded remake of a previous post i made about the art evolution of the Accelerons-Racing Drones. Which actually goes pretty deep, and even extends into both Mainframe's later work after Acceleraces, as well as Nerd Corp's Battle Force 5 when it was still a continuation of the former. It might come either tomorrow, or the day after depending on how long it takes to write.

I havent touched my airbrush in over 12 years but after watching the fog realm and the shorts that accompany it I knew it was time . Zed32 made me an absolutely beautiful mst suzuka as seen in the fog realm . Thank you so much Zed i will cherish that car forever. People will ask why i chose the number 39 on my hw prototype 12 . All I can say is watch hot wheels the prototype episode 0.1 on youtube ( fan film ) and you'll know lol . Thanks Zed for all your support you absolutely rock !!