Others have pointed out that Rust's type-checking is all done at compile time. Rust also does not have exception handling.
To be more specific: errors in Rust are either propagated by function return values (usually in the form of `Result` or `Option` types) which do not require any kind of runtime support, or by panicking, which unwinds the stack for clearing-up of resources and then halts the running thread. (Panics cannot be caught, although they can [EDIT: sometimes but not always; see burntsushi's comment below] be observed by a parent thread if they have occurred in a child thread.) Rust's "runtime", therefore is negligible, much like C's: it consists mainly of functions which can be called for things like stack unwinding or backtrace support.
Do note the caveats in the docs though. It isn't guaranteed to catch all panics. Indeed, unwinding can be disabled completely with a compiler option (instead, panics will abort).
EDIT: Sorry, I don't mean 'runtime type checks' are slowing down Rust, but rather that Rust performs more general runtime safety checks (like RefCell).
You're correct- what I had meant to say is Rust is smarter with more runtime checks over C for several cases, like RefCell. Therefor, Rust can be slower than C because of safety (but not because of type checking itself).
To be more specific: errors in Rust are either propagated by function return values (usually in the form of `Result` or `Option` types) which do not require any kind of runtime support, or by panicking, which unwinds the stack for clearing-up of resources and then halts the running thread. (Panics cannot be caught, although they can [EDIT: sometimes but not always; see burntsushi's comment below] be observed by a parent thread if they have occurred in a child thread.) Rust's "runtime", therefore is negligible, much like C's: it consists mainly of functions which can be called for things like stack unwinding or backtrace support.