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).
"Because RefCell<T> allows mutable borrows checked at runtime, you can mutate the value inside the RefCell<T> even when the RefCell<T> is immutable."
*source https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch15-05-interior-mutability.h...
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).