The Cars sets have printed pieces for strange shapes or key elements, like faces or the car roofs. But there are some choices for sticker elements that make absolutely no sense, none more than the 8206 Tokyo Pit Stop. In the set, you have two checkered flag elements, and they actually give you two stickers for them, so you have the checkered flag... on one side.
So, you get this
flag, in white. A very common part. And if there wasn't, I don't know, a decent option, like, say... this...
If this was a super-rare part, I'd get not just throwing it in there. But this flag is quite possibly sitting in PaB bins in every single LEGO store in the galaxy right now. I have an entire little bin full of the things, I picked them up over a year ago. The cost is obviously almost non-existent to make this element, as they're in such bulk. Why give a sticker for it instead of a full-fledged printed part?
More than that, it's something that really bugs me about the Cars sets in general. The long-standing reason for LEGO in dropping the number of minifigs and printed pieces was the high cost, in comparison to traditional elements. The Cars sets have no minifigures, and never will. The sets themselves are the minifigures, and are often built out of traditional parts. Seems like they just found a more margin-rich solution, instead of giving proper printed elements to the sets. Which makes me wonder if cost was ever the reasoning behind it all...
You know, if I see links to Brickshelf, more often than not, the first thing I click is the "Back" button.
