Configuration

When you first run the program, this window comes up:

This allows you to select which video renderer to use. If you have no 3D video acceleration, then you should select "Software". If you have a video accelerator card and DirectX 7.0 or later installed, select "Direct3D". If you have a Voodoo, Voodoo 2, or some other secondary card, select "Secondary". Otherwise choose "Primary".

Sign In

The first screen you stop at is the "Sign In" screen. This allows you to pick your driver name. If you want a new driver name, select the "New Driver" button.

All settings are saved under your driver name. If someone else wants to play the game, they should create a new driver so the game will remember all their settings and keys.

After you click on your driver name and it is highlighted in yellow, press the "OK" button.

If you want to quit out of the program, press "Quit".

New Driver

The first time you play the game, you may want to create a new driver. When the New Driver menu comes up, just type in the driver name and press "Create".

If you decide not to create a new driver, you can press the "Back" button.

Main Menu

The "Main Menu" Is your starting point for all games. If you just started the game for the first time, you may want to go to "Options" to set up you video, audio, control and game settings.

To start a single player game, select "Single Player". To play a multiplayer game, select "Multiplayer". To switch drivers, modify a driver’s name, delete a driver or view a driver’s trophy case, select "Modify Drivers". To record or playback a replay, select "Replay". To view the credits, select "Credits". To quit out of the program, select "Quit".

Single Player

To drive in an event, first you must pick which event to register for. An event is a combination of car class, event type and track. The car classes are compact, mid size, full size, wagon and open. Compacts always have their own derby. At the local level, mid and full size cars are in another derby. The regionals allow you to enter station wagons to compete against the mid and full sized cars. The nationals allow you to enter the open class cars.

The first event type is a demolition derby. The winner is the last car that can move under its own power.

And then there is a figure 8 race. This is 20 laps of no holds barred slamming and crashing. But the first one to finish 20 laps wins.

There are 9 tracks which you can race at. Three are local tracks: Dixboro, Pinewood and Stony Creek. Three are regional tracks: Madison, Springfield and Zanesville. Three are national tracks: Huntsville, Kingsville and Wilmington. Figure 8 races are run at Dixboro, Zanesville and Kingsville.

To change the currently selected event, you can click on the left and right arrows. Once you have stopped on the event you wish to do, click the "OK" button to continue.

Next you select a car. Based on which event you chose, only the cars allowed to be driven in that event will be available to you.

If you stop scrolling through the list, the currently selected car will appear below. Once you have stopped on the car you wish, press "OK".

After you press "OK", the loading screen will come up and the event will start.

Multiplayer

To host or join a multiplayer game, press "Multiplayer" in the Main Menu.

First you have to pick a network protocol. IPX is for LANs only. TCP/IP works on LANs and the Internet. For everybody to get into a game, they must all choose the same protocol.

One person chooses "Host" and everyone else chooses "Join".

Host

Once you press host, you are taken right away to the on deck area. Once there you can choose the event and car you wish to enter.

At the top of the screen is the currently selected event. You can change this by pressing the "Select Event" button.

To change which car you are entering, press the "Select Car" button.

The "Recovery" selector tells whether drivers are allowed to recover their cars when flipped over. If this is "Off", flipped cars will not be able to recover themselves.

The "Sand Bag Clock" selector allows you to change the amount of time a driver can go without a collision before they are put on the clock. On bigger tracks you may want to increase this slightly over the default 40 seconds. Or you can turn it off completely. This setting has no effect on a figure 8 race.

The "Max # of Drivers" selector limits how many drivers are in the race. This includes human and AI drivers.

The "AI Drivers" selector determines if the field should be filled out with AI drivers up to "Max # of Drivers".

"Difficulty" determines how much the AI drivers pick on the human drivers.

If you type messages into the black box and press <Enter>, they will be sent to all the other drivers. You can use this to taunt other drivers or ask if the other drivers are ready.

Once all the drivers have their cars and the settings are all set, press "Race" to start the race.

Join

Once you have selected "Join", a list of potential games you can join comes up. Usually this list will have only one item in it. As soon as the game you want to play in comes up, you can highlight it yellow and select "Join".

If you are playing on the internet, type in the host’s IP address in the black box and press "Find Host". Their game should soon appear in the list below. Once it does, highlight it and press "Join".

Then you will be on deck.

At the top of the screen is the event name you will be entering. On the right are the settings chosen by the host. If you type messages into the black box and press return, they will be sent to all the other drivers. You can use this to taunt other drivers or inform the host you are ready.

The "Select Car" button will allow you to select any car. There are no restrictions on what car you can choose for any event in a multiplayer game. Once you have found your car, press "OK".

The "Back" button will drop you out of the multiplayer game completely and put you back at the "Main Menu".

Modify Drivers

Here you can select a different driver to be active, modify a driver’s name, delete a driver, create a new driver or just look at a driver’s trophy case.

To switch to a different driver, highlight that driver and press "Select Driver". The * next to their name means that that is the current driver.

You can highlight a driver and modify their name. Or you can delete them completely. Or you can look at their trophy case.

Replay

You can record races for playback later. To record a game, set the "Record Replays" selector to "On". The time selector allows you to limit the amount of time that it will record. This will limit the amount of disk space taken up by any individual recording.

The program will record up to 10 replays for any given track. Then you must rename them in Windows under the VCR folder or delete old ones that are not needed any more.

To play back a reply, just highlight it in the list and press "Play Replay".

Options

Video

The Video options allow you to change the in-game graphic settings.

"Driving View" is the default starting view when the game loads. You can change this anytime in the game.

"Resolution" is the screen’s resolution. If you have a video card with 32MB or more of video memory, you can easily run 1024x768. 16MB can run 800x600 well. 8MB can run 640x480 well. Cards with less than 8MB of video memory are not going to run the game well.

Another setting you can use to speed up the game is "Graphic Detail". If you have a 16MB or less of video memory on your video card, you should set this at "Medium". If you have more than 16MB of video memory, you can set this on high. If the game runs slow, try reducing this setting.

Audio

There are three volume settings which you may want to change. The first is the in-game sound effects volume. This includes all sound effects such as crashes, engine, starting lights, etc…. The second is the background crowd noise in the option screens. The third is the fanfare volume. This includes the fanfare that plays while loading and the winner’s theme that plays at the end.

Control

These are the settings for keyboard and joystick/game pad/steering wheel. Of note here are the "Auto Flip View" and "Auto Flip Controls". These change your view and controls when you go backward. You can also change these once you get in the game.

To change a key or controller, double-click on the item you want to change. It will then prompt you for a key press and a controller action for that setting.

NOTE: If you are not using a game controller, change that setting to "Off". Otherwise the game will not know whether to look for settings on the controller or the keyboard.

Game

The "Difficulty" setting has to do with AI driver skill and attitude. The higher the difficulty setting, the more skill and attitude they have. Attitude in this case is defined as how much they are looking for the human drivers before they look for AI driver cars.

"Powder Puff" derbies are derbies which only have women drivers in them. They are only available at the local level.

"Network Data Rate" is how fast your connection is for multiplayer games. This setting should be the slowest branch of your connection to others. If you have a LAN that connects up to the Internet via 56k modem, if you are playing someone on the Internet, your setting should be "56k modem". On the other hand, if you are playing someone on the LAN, you should be set to "LAN".

Credits

This is where you can see all the cool people’s names who helped put the game together.

Game Play

For the derbies you start in a heat. If you are one of the two last cars in a heat, you get to go to the feature. If you win a feature, you get a trophy. To win a figure 8 race, you just have to come in first. There are no heats and features.

The races and derbies all start with the lights counting down. When they go green, you can go.

There are several ways you can get knocked out of a derby. First, by taking damage. Cars take damage in the fenders first. You cannot damage the engine (center front) or the back end (center back) until a fender is gone. Once a fender is gone, all damage on that side goes straight to the center. All body parts start as green (full->2/3). As they get damaged they go to yellow(2/3->1/3), then red(1/3->0), then gone (0). After the engine or the back end are gone, you are out.

Once your engine goes yellow, your radiator blows and you start pouring out steam. The steam will stop when the engine goes red or after two minutes. Once the engine stops steaming, the temperature gauge starts to rise. After 5 minutes, your engine will overheat and you are done.

If you get hit hard enough, your engine will stall. If it stalls, your engine light will come on. When that happens, you will want to hit the ignition key (default: ‘i’). When your car is turning over, your engine light will go yellow. If your car fails to start, your engine light will go back to red. At that point, you should hit the ignition key again. If the car starts, the light will go back to being unlit.

There are two things that will cause the officials to put you on the clock: not moving and not hitting. If you are not moving and your engine is running, you will be put on the clock after 20 seconds. If you are moving, but not hitting, you will be put on the clock after 40 seconds. The way to get off the clock is to hit someone or have someone hit you. Hits while you are stalled or flipped over don’t count towards getting you off the clock. The third time you are going to be put on the clock, you are black flagged. That is the three strikes rule.

The way you can tell if another driver’s car is damaged is by the driver list:

The little boxes on the right represent the state of their engine and back end. When a driver’s engine goes red, the top box next to their name will be red. When they are black flagged, their name will be listed at the end of the list in gray.

Strategy

Figure 8 strategy is simple: do whatever it takes to win. If that means flipping cars, spinning them around or running them into a wall, then go for it. But mostly, keep moving.

Demolition Derby strategy is a little more subtle. First off, cars take more damage when hit on the side than the front. Here are their damage zones:

If two cars hit bumper to bumper, both will take the same damage. If one hits the side of the other, the car hit on the side can take many times the damage that the car using it’s front takes. So aim for the sides. There is no rule stopping you from hitting the driver's side door. Computer drivers are tough. They may bend a little, but they can take it.

When you hit a wall, you take damage. So try not to hit walls.

If you hit a car that is lined up against a wall, they take damage from you and the wall.

Once you have blown your radiator (your engine is yellow), you have seven minutes maximum before your engine overheats. While this is less of an issue in the locals, in the nationals, you may be done even though you still have a lot of car left. So protect your front for as long as you can.

Keys

*The Ignition key tries to restart your engine if it stalls and the engine light comes on.

**The Recovery key flips your car back over if you get flipped upside down.

View Control

Swingman Controls

Function Keys