The low down
The Fire Race V3 is RRD’s freerace board line, sharing the same out-line and shape as their X-Fire world cup race boards, they come out of the same mould but are in a more durable and cost effective wood sandwich construction. The range has had a few tweaks this year, with redesigned rockers and hull shapes, it is also available in five different sizes from 90 up to 135 litres.

At a glance
It has a hardcore slalom shape, with a squared nose and wide tail. On the deck it has subtly raised and nicely domed stance area around the straps, along with a concaved deck at the mast track. Underneath it has double concaves that blend into vee in the tail and it also has cut-outs either side of the fin. The fin is Tuttle box and it comes with a 42cm MFC fin.

Performance
It is very stable and comfortable, accelerating quickly and easily up to planing speed. The ride from the straps is excellent, the DaKine footstraps are superbly comfortable and the elevated and domed deck feels great under foot. This is a fast bit of kit, it has a serious slalom shape, so you can properly load it up and drive it hard, pushing it to the limit where it delivers lightning performance in a straight line. It is super composed at speed, never getting out of control and this gives you the confidence to push harder and search for that extra gear. Despite having such a serious slalom shape, it is still a very easy and fun board to ride particularly round the corners, it carves very smoothly and easily, making full speed gybe exits feel totally automatic and giving you confidence through every turn.

The verdict
The Fire Race is a serious slalom board, so if you’re looking for a durable and cost effective race board then this is the one for you but even if you’re not into racing, this would still be a fun board to go for as the RRD’s are some of the easiest slalom boards to ride and are super accessible for all levels of rider.

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