Racing games of the early 80s

The 80s can be considered the golden age of arcade games as they were starting to become more popular. One game that pushed the boundaries was called pole position. It was designed by  Tōru Iwatani who is responsible for the world famous PAC man game. This game was released by namco in 1982 as a arcade style cabinet. There were two styles of the arcade cabinet one was the standard upright one and the other was more like a cockpit. The cockpit cabinet had a seat to make the player feel like a driver and it also included 4 speakers 2 of which are located on the sides of the seat.  It featured Japan's Fuji racetrack which made it the first game to feature a real race track in a game. It was a major success making tens of millions of dollars which made it the highest grossing arcade game of the year. The game began with the player competing a timed lap to qualify for a F1 race on the Fuji racetrack. After that race the player raced against 7 other computer controlled cars. The player had to avoid crashing into the other cars as well as the billboards on the side of the road and going into the grass reduced the cars speed.

Cockpit Cabinet

Video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeYZGtwydIA 3:15- 4:27

Regular Cabinet

Pitstops II was another revolutionary game that was developed by Epyx released in 1984. It was the first 3D racing games to feature a two player split screen. The players of the game raced against each other while maintaining there tires and fuel as its name suggests. It was more realistic since the car could run out of fuel or wear out the tires while in other games you wouldn't have to worry about that. When you went in for a pit stop the player had to click the gas guy or the tire guy and take control over them. As the tire guy you could walk over to the tire you want to change and put it to the side and put on a new one. The game also gave the user the choice of the number of laps which was 3, 6 or 9 and a choice of 3 different difficulty levels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn6ytoaMdvE 4:45-5:20 (video showing a pitstop)