Race Drivin'

The regular stunt track has other racers and on-coming traffic: a blue minivan, a green sedan, and a large brown dumptruck. This selection actually has two seperate courses: a speed track with ramps and dips in road, and a stunt track with a jump, a loop and a banked curve.

The Autocross track is a small track with a pace car. This course requires more precision manuevers, less speed and more skill.

The Super Stunt track has banked curves, mountains, winding roads, large jumps, a loop/inverted jump, a barrel roll, a giant ramp, and a tunnel. This is a very large track, the biggest of the three.

The player can choose from four different cars three with manual transmissions and one with automatic. All vehicles have different handling characteristics. Force Feedback in the steering wheel gives a real driving feel to the game. There is also an option to play against another player. The first player races -- his drive is recorded -- and the second player races against recording of the first. Two game cabinets can even be linked through a cable and players can race against each other simultaneously.

If you drive off the track you are given a countdown of ten seconds to return to the track. There is also a playback of crashes. In the overall scenery of the game, there are traffic signs, speed limit signs, buildings, and cows.

On the Super Stunt Track, the amount of bonus time you gain on each lap is very close to the time it takes for a skilled driver to complete the course. If you drive hard and make no mistakes, you can actually gain about one second every time you go around the course, and play forever (or at least until you flub up).

The game does not end until your car comes to a complete stop, so if you run out of time near a gate, put the car into neutral -- you may be able to coast through and get the bonus time.

On the Super Stunt Track, there is a tunnel that goes underneath the mountain road as you near the finish line. Inside the tunnel are two vehicles that appear to have gotten into a wreck of some sort. They are unfortunatly blocking the road. In order to get around the cars, you need to perform a "corkscrew" type of stunt by driving over the two vehicles around the inside of the tunnel. This is the same kind of technique used on the barrel roll on the Super Stunt Track.

There is a third version of this game a driving simulator with a cop car and a different track, with the ROMs having hand-written numbers on them. There are two seperate copyright dates in the attract mode of Race Drivin' game: 1988 and 1990 Atari Games. There is a warning in the attract mode: "Be Carefull though, many of the stunts and manuevers in this game would be dangerous or fatal if tried in a real car!!!!!!!"

Atari had multiple patents on this game. The patent for a "Rear entry booth and seat for a sit-down video game" can be viewed at "http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pnUS04960117__s_clms1".

There is also a Commercial Panorama version of this game with three screens that show the center left and right views from the car.

There are two versions of this game:

• Compact - A large upright game with a padded bench on the front. This version has a big lighted marquee. It also uses a Standard-Resolution monitor.
• Cockpit - A partially enclosed cockpit with a contoured, moveable seat. The likeness of a car with red racing stripes on a yellow background appears on the outside of the cabinet. It also uses a Medium-Resolution monitor.

All the game settings are controlled via on-screen menus. The controls can be disabled and the game will change accordingly (i.e. brake, clutch and gear shifter).