Quality/Construction: Quantum's Speed Freak casting reel is a 100 sized baitcaster finished in black with red highlights. The sideplates are a mixture of glossy and matt black while the frame and thumb bar are mostly matt black. With the mixture in finishes, there are a lot of seams and joint lines on this reel, but they are all aligned perfectly. The EVA foam knobs are tight to the handle, but the handle does have a small degree of backplay along with some play into and away from the reel.

The Speed Freak has a retrieve ratio of 8.1:1!

It comes standard with a nice long handle and EVA foam knobs.

Brakes are adjusted through this external dial.

Drag: Quantum is using what they refer to as a new CSC Carbon fiber, stainless, and ceramic drag system in this reel. The maximum drag specifications of the original Smoke reels was 15lb. With the new drag system in the current generation of Smoke reels, Quantum has upped this specification to a whopping 25 pounds of maximum pressure. We were able to confirm up to 24 pounds of pressure on the Machine so 25 pounds is not out of the realm of possibilities for someone with stronger fingers and able to tighten that drag down another click or three.

Fig 1: The Sweet Drag Performance chart above shows the consistency in drag performance of our Quantum Smoke Speed Freak.

Of course, our concern has always been just how sweet (smooth and consistent) is that drag and if you look at the chart above, you can see the Speed Freak performed fairly well in this department as well. The tighter you fasten down that drag or the harder your catch pulls, it appears the more inconsistent the drag performs, but considering the reel's range, performance is good.

Unfortunately out on the water, I wasn't able to test this reel's capabilities with any extraordinary situations or catches. We were hoping to get into a striper run on the California Delta, this past fall, but once again the fish eluded me this year.