Steve Mariner's Speed Circuit Alternate Start Page

Steven K. Mariner

Last Updated: 22-Mar-2024

Speed Circuit Alternate Start

Someone in my weekly group has come up with this alternate start procedure for Speed Circuit. I think it makes the game more fair and more fun, especially with more than six cars on the track.

Here is a printable template for up to 8 cars: scaltst.pdf. Its use is described below.

Speed Circuit

Alternate Startup

Designed by Jack Burness
Reviewed by Steven K. Mariner

This alternate startup mechanism sacrifices the reality of physical positioning at the start of the race in order to obtain a more realistic effect of what actually happens at the start of the race. The sacrifice is momentary, and does not appear to detract from the realistic feel of the race once it actually begins; it does, in fact, improve upon it immensely in a traditional 3-lap race.

This is an overlay, normally printed to scale on paper or markerboard and laid over the starting position of the track; the cars line up on it, and as soon as the last car is off of it, it is removed from play, never to be seen again during the race.

What this does is give everyone an even starting position, and by the time everyone crosses the real starting line, the pack looks a lot more like a real race, and the spread between the leaders and the pushers is greatly reduced.

This is done using the conventional rules for car design, including the Start Speed attribute, so it ignores the new car design rules that a lot of Speed Circuit clubs are using these days.

The gray spaces are where the cars start, further back depending on how many cars are in the race. The track is artificially widened at the start line so everyone essentially starts in the same position (although placement into lane is still done using the normal Start Speed and die roll system).

12

C
a
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s 10

C
a
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s 8

C
a
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s 6

C
a
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s 4

C
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s Normal Starting Positions

My weekly group tried this with 8 cars and I have to say I like it. This race was much more fun and balanced than the dozen or so other 7- and 8-car races we'd run recently. There are a number of reasons why I really like this alternate startup system:

The huge gap between the 40-starters and the 80-starters was eliminated. It looked more like the start of a real race.
The effect was closer to emulating the rolling start that races normally have.
Some amount of jockeying was possible before the race actually began, which gave it more of a "Time Trial" feel than a "Die Roll" feel for differentiating start positions amongst cars with the same Start Speed.
The pushers (guys in the back) never felt completely out of the race, even with 8 cars on the track. In fact, 8th start got to 3rd place, with the only die roll being an Increase Start Speed after a collision heading into the first corner.
Car construction stayed within the original Avalon Hill design, and was balanced within that original framework.
The value of Start Speed was reduced to an almost normal level without having to rework any other game mechanics.

We'd analyzed ten races we'd recently run; about 80% of the time, a driver would tend to finish within one or two of his starting place. The 8th place start had almost no hope of finishing well, and furthermore, this was painfully clear from shortly after the start of the race.

In this race, the pushers were very much a part of the race. I had, for example, specifically designed my car with a 40 Start Speed to test this. As luck would have it, I started in 8th of 8; but I had moved into 3rd place by the second to last corner of the 3rd and final lap -- with only one die roll, that being an Increase Start Speed after colliding with cars going into the first corner of the race.

On the second to last corner, I took the inner lane of the corner for +60 MPH instead of the outer lane at +40 in a bid for 2nd place, and rolled a 6 on the Chance Table and crashed. But I had earned 3rd place with no dice on the race except for the aforementioned Increase Start Speed (which was pointedly not used at the start of the race). I only crashed because I took a silly risk in an attempt to snare 2nd. If this had been part of a circuit, I wouldn't have taken the chance and would have been happy with 3rd place, which I'd earned by driving the course well. We've never been able to go 8th to 3rd using the conventional startup placement.

All in all, I really like this alternate startup. I'd be interested in hearing other peoples' opinions of it, especially if you'd run a 3-lap race using it.