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Top Fuel Times... An interesting story about Dragster's world record times


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Thought this was an interesting story. People doubting the time of the world record for Dragster for the Atari 2600.

 

http://kotaku.com/doubt-and-drama-still-haunt-an-old-seemingly-impossibl-1796714894

 

By way of comparison, here are the times from the recent VCS HSC thread when we played Dragster. Looks like we got some contenders... (but not sure if they would count, as many, myself included, used emulation and I don't know if that would be allowed...)

 

5.64 Scrabbler15 (+32)

5.67 nads (+31)

5.74 snakeboy (+30)

5.74 Northcoastgamer (+29)

5.91 Lauren Tyler (+28)

5.94 oyamafamily (+27)

5.97 Jin (+26)

5.97 Diamonds (+25)

5.97 TheHoboInYourRoom (+24)

6.07 Vocelli (+23)

6.11 Micheloni2600 (+22)

6.14 keilbaca (+21)

6.14 darthkur (+20)

6.17 CapitanClassic (+19)

6.17 Eltigro (+18)

6.21 AtariWarlord (+16)

6.21 agb (+15)

6.24 Atarian7 (+14)

6.27 Cynicaster (+13)

6.34 Tony Danger (+12)

6.41 S.BAZ (+11)

6.44 classicgamer_27330 (+10)

6.57 RaccooneyDave (+9)

6.68 troff (+8 )

7.14 bugcatcher88 (+7)

7.18 Piggles (+6)

7.51 roadrunner (+5)

7.88 karokoenig (+4)

7.91 Gorfy (+3)

9.35 RJ (+2)

10.92 jblenkle (+1)

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Fascinating article! I can honestly say I've never given this much thought to what is (imo) Activision's worst 2600 game. It's one we played a lot bitd but I never liked it one bit.

 

I honestly don't know what to think. I know Todd is incredibly skilled and the fact that his time is an interval of .03 sec, along with Crane's backing, seems to indicate that he did it, end of story. But then... why can't it be replicated in a TAS video??

 

I used to fry my 2600 with quick power cycles to get multiple shots on Space Invaders (rather than waiting for 1 shot at a time to connect or go off-screen) and I could see a trick like that somehow working to Todd's benefit in Dragster. Such a trick wouldn't have been evident on a Polaroid sent to Activision in 1982.

 

Truly fascinating.

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I met Tood at one of the CGE events - he was a pretty nice and personable guy. We played Dragster and he showed me some of the tricks. Im pretty sure he got a sub 5.6 time messing around at the booth. It was something like 5.57 is what he got after *alot* of gameplay. He helped me improve my time to 5.64 or .63 - this was 17 years ago, but I never cracked the 6 second mark before Todd showed me the best way to shift.

 

He couldnt replicate his 5.57 time again during the show, but didnt spend alot of time trying to.

 

I can say I did beat Todd head 2 head in 1 race - my claim to fame ;)

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WHAT?! You guys don't know how to properly do it? You just slam the button till your engine blows and then coast across the finish line about two minutes after your competitor :D :P yeah I suck at this game, I can get some good times but usually low fuel.

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WHAT?! You guys don't know how to properly do it? You just slam the button till your engine blows and then coast across the finish line about two minutes after your competitor :D :P yeah I suck at this game, I can get some good times but usually low fuel.

What I hate about that is it should still give you the time when you almost get to the end of the race, blow your engine, and coast across the finish line but it doesn't. It just says "blown." I still like the game though.

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