From Mario Kart to rFactor 2, all kinds of racing games have their own world records. Here are a few of our favourites.
Photo credit: Studio 397
Regardless of whether a World Record is impressive, imaginative, or a downright pointless waste of time, we all enjoy hearing about them. While sim racing records tend to be focused on individual lap records on particular games at certain tracks, there are far too many of these to discuss and each one is not terribly interesting in itself. Instead, we have compiled a list of five of the best sim racing and racing game records that we know of.
5. Most Cars in a Single Game
Our first record in this list was added to the Guinness World Record collection in March of 2017. Gran Turismo 6 is the game in question, and it has its hefty roster of 1,237 individual cars to thank for its world record status. The base game’s line-up, an already whopping 1,197 cars, was complemented in the years following the release with DLC and updates to reach the overall high of 1,237 by 2017. No other game has beaten the record since then, or even come terribly close to doing so.
4. First Ever Sim Racing Game
While this category may seem simple and nailed-on, it’s not quite as easy as you might think. Guinness records Psion’s 1983 release Chequered Flag as the first ever sim racing game. However, the game was not really a racing game at all, but a driving game. This is because there were no opponents to race against in-game. Other titles, such as Gran Trak 10, also hold claim to the title of first racing game. Nevertheless, Chequered Flag, which allowed you to drive both a Ferretti and a McFaster, reached number one in the UK sales charts. It was later knocked off the top spot by a game called Jet Set Willy, which is a totally normal name with no comedic potential whatsoever. None.
3. Best-selling Racing Game
It probably won’t come as a surprise that the top four best-selling racing games are all parts of the Mario Kart franchise. What you may not have expected is that the number one spot belongs to Mario Kart 8. The latest mainstream game in the Mario Kart series was something of a flop on its initial Wii U release in 2014, when it only sold just over eight million copies. However, the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the much more popular Nintendo Switch skyrocketed overall sales to forty million, around three million more than Mario Kart Wii managed.
2. Longest Sim Race of All Time
Coming in at number two is the record that Guinness succinctly calls the “longest video game marathon playing a racing game”. Back in August 2016, five sim racers from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain teamed up to drive a Ford GT around Le Mans for forty-eight hours, twenty-nine minutes and twenty-one seconds. The game they used was Forza 6 and the feat was accomplished at a Ford-organised event in Cologne. In the process, the drivers clocked up over 3,000 laps of the circuit, which is equivalent to driving the entire Earth’s circumference, and then a bit more!
1. Biggest Sim Race of All Time
Finally, taking the top spot in our list we have the biggest sim race of all time. The 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual held in 2020 saw two-hundred drivers competing in the event on rFactor 2. Not only were there plenty of drivers, but the calibre was incredible as well. The likes of Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris all took part. Perhaps unsurprisingly for such a mammoth race, the server crashed five hours into proceedings, forcing a red flag situation. The overall victory in the LMP class was taken by the Rebellion Williams Esports team, with F2 drivers both current and former in the forms of Louis Delétraz and Raffaele Marciello being the team’s star drivers.
Did we miss any of your favourite records? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
