Gran Trak 10 is a racing video game created by Atari, Inc. through its owned company Cyan Engineering and released for arcade machines in May 1974. Players control a car on a race track shown from above, avoiding walls of pylons and passing as many checkpoints as possible before time ends. The game uses a steering wheel, accelerator, brake pedals, and a gear stick. If the car hits a pylon, it crashes and spins.

Atari’s founder, Nolan Bushnell, first planned to make a driving game inspired by Chicago Coin’s Speedway (1969) when he started the company but later chose to create Pong (1972) instead. In late 1973, Atari began developing Gran Trak 10. Larry Emmons of Cyan initially designed the game, while Eigen Systems handled the mechanical parts. After problems were found during a small production run in March 1974, Allan Alcorn, the designer of Pong, redesigned the game. Wider distribution began in May. The game’s circuits may include the first use of integrated circuit-based read-only memory (ROM), which later became standard for arcade games, replacing older diode-stored graphics.

Gran Trak 10 was made during a time of changes at Atari, which caused communication issues and led to poor tracking of manufacturing costs. The game was sold to distributors at a loss of $100 per cabinet, contributing to a total loss of $500,000 for Atari that year and causing financial trouble. Despite this, the game was successful and led to multiple versions in 1974, including Trak 10 (a smaller cabinet version) and Gran Trak 20 (a two-player version), as well as later racing games. Gran Trak 10 was the first arcade car racing video game. Atari had previously released a spaceship racing game, Space Race (1973), and a simple racing game, Wipeout, came with the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey console.

Gameplay

Gran Trak 10 is a single-player racing video game where the player drives a race car on a track shown from above. The player controls the car using a steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedals, and a gear stick, just like in a real car. Shifting gears requires the player to move between reverse, first, second, and third gears as needed. However, the pedals are buttons instead of smooth controls, so the player cannot change speed by pressing harder. The steering wheel only turns the car when it is actively turned, and there is no neutral position that keeps the car straight. Braking does not stop the car immediately, and turning while braking causes the car to skid.

The track is shown on the screen with walls of white dots that represent pylons. If the car hits a pylon, it stops and spins. There is only one track layout. The track includes one black path that represents an oil slick, which makes it hard for the car to turn. At the top of the screen, two numbers are displayed: the number on the right shows the remaining time in the game, starting at 78 and decreasing by 2 each time. The number on the left shows how many checkpoints the player has passed, increasing by 2 each time.

The game time starts at 78 seconds but is normally set to 105 seconds by the game operator. Adjusting the time changes how fast the counter decreases and how long the car stays stopped after hitting a pylon. A switch on the game’s circuit board can disable crashes entirely, and another switch allows two games to be played for one quarter instead of one. A sign on the front of the game shows suggested ratings based on the player’s score, ranging from "License Revoked" for 10 or fewer points to "Real Pro" for more than 40 points. The operator’s manual advises changing or removing this sign if the game time is adjusted.

Development

In 1972, Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, thought about making a driving video game as one of the company’s first games. He was inspired by a game called Speedway made by Chicago Coin in 1969. However, he decided not to make the game because he thought it would be too difficult to create. In late 1973, Atari considered making a driving video game again, but this time it was not based on any previous game. The design was created by Cyan Engineering, a research group that had recently become part of Atari. Cyan had earlier helped design a game called Gotcha.

Larry Emmons, an engineer at Cyan, built the circuits that controlled the car in the game. These circuits made the car feel like it was braking, speeding up, and moving. Emmons also used memory chips called mask ROM (read-only memory) to store track designs, instead of the diode arrays used in earlier games. This was the first time memory chips were used in an arcade game, and later games began using ROMs as standard.

The mechanical parts of the game, such as the steering wheel, pedal, and gear shift, were designed by Eigen Systems, a company located in the same building as Cyan. Eigen was founded by former coworkers of Cyan’s engineers. At one point, the game included a small printer to record high scores, but this feature was removed before the final version.

Allan Alcorn, the creator of Pong, took a break from Atari in September 1973. Around the same time, Steve Bristow, who had worked on Atari’s first arcade game Computer Space, left to start a new company called Kee Games. This left Lloyd Warman, a new employee, to lead engineering for Atari during the development of Gran Trak. Alcorn and Emmons said Warman was a good engineer but not a strong manager, which caused delays and design problems. These issues were made worse by a new Atari management team and unclear communication between departments.

In early 1974, Atari had trouble getting enough parts from National Semiconductor to build the game. The company said Emmons’ design was too unusual, and at first refused to sell the parts. Later, they only produced small amounts. Alcorn said the unusual design was meant to stop other companies from copying the game.

A few Gran Trak systems were made in March 1974, but problems with the steering controls were found. The prototype used parts from a real car, but the final version used different parts. Alcorn returned to Cyan and redesigned the game to fix these issues and use more common parts. The copying protection system was changed to use a custom chip that had the same name as a standard chip from Texas Instruments.

Alcorn later said Warman and Emmons did not understand the challenges of turning a prototype into a product that could be made in large numbers. After the redesign, Gran Trak went into full production, and Atari announced it would ship many units in May 1974. However, problems with communication during development caused another issue: Atari did not know the true cost of making the game. Each unit cost $1,095 to produce, but Atari sold them to stores for only $995, losing $100 per sale. Atari fixed this problem later, but the game’s financial loss contributed to a large loss for the company during that year.

Reception and legacy

In 1974, Atari reported a loss of $500,000, nearly equal to its profits from the previous year. One of the main reasons for this loss was the Gran Trak game. This financial difficulty led to serious problems for Atari, and Gran Trak became known as "the game that nearly put Atari out of business." In September 1974, Atari combined with its subsidiary, Kee Games. Kee’s last game, Tank, released in November 1974, was a commercial success and helped improve Atari’s financial situation during a difficult time.

After fixing its issues, the Gran Trak 10 game became successful. Atari released several versions of it: a copy called Formula K was made by Kee Games and sold to different distributors in July 1974. Atari also created a smaller version called Trak 10 later that year. According to Ralph H. Baer, Formula K sold 6,000 units. In August 1974, a two-player version called Gran Trak 20 was released, along with a copy called Twin Racer by Kee Games and a smaller version called Trak 20. Baer estimates that Gran Trak 20 sold 4,500 units.

In March 1976, RePlay magazine listed the combined sales of Gran Trak 10 and 20 as the fifth highest-earning arcade game in the United States the previous year. They ranked below Tank, Wheels, Gun Fight, and Indy 800. In Japan, Gran Trak 10 and 20 were among the top ten highest-earning arcade games in 1977 and among the top seven racing games that year, with Taito’s Speed Race DX leading the list.

Atari created other racing arcade games similar to Gran Trak, including LeMans (1976), Sprint 2 (1976), Super Sprint (1986), and Badlands (1989). Gran Trak 10 was the first arcade car racing video game and the first to use a steering wheel. It is often called the "grandfather" of car racing video games. Before Gran Trak 10, a simple racing game called Wipeout was released in 1972 for the Magnavox Odyssey home console, and a spaceship racing game called Space Race was released by Atari in 1973. Gran Trak 10 influenced Taito game designer Tomohiro Nishikado. Although he did not enjoy the game’s difficult controls, it inspired him to create his own driving game by combining ideas from two older games: Kasco’s Mini Drive (1958) and Taito’s Super Road 7 (1970). This led to the creation of Speed Race in 1974.