Gran Trak 10/Trak 10/Formula K - MAME machine

Arcade Video game published 50 years ago:

Gran Track 10 © 1974 Atari.

Player drops in his quarter, hits the starter, grabs the wheel and-he's off! Four-speed gear shift (1, 2, 3, R) changes speed of the car on the screen and the sound of the engine. Foot pedals for gas and brake demand quick reactions around the road-race curves. Watch out for the oil slick! Your brakes lock momentarily and you skid. It takes lots and lots of pratice runs. At two bits a run.

TECHNICAL
Controls:
Steering wheel.
4-position gear shift lever.
Brake pedal.
Gas pedal.

TRIVIA
Released in March 1974, selling at an MSRP of $1095.

Gran Track 10 was one of the first driving video game and IS the first game to use ROM memory.

The Trak series took an inventive approach to combating pirates. When Atari assigned a part number to the custom-designed ROMs for the game, they gave it the same number as a Texas Instruments Arithmetic Logic Unit so that when pirates tried to build their own version, they'd order the wrong part and their clones wouldn't work.

Atari's new Grass Valley think Tank was used to design the game, but Atari proper was disappointed by engineering flaws in the original design. Al Alcorn had to step in and fix the game before it went into production. This fix created costly rework and delays for the game. Worse, an accounting error had Gran Trak 10 selling for $995, when it cost $1095 to manufacture. Because of these problems, Atari lost $500,000 on Gran Trak 10, which was as much as the company had made the previous year. The European version of the game was called: "Race Circuit Automaten". The game was advertised as "Durastress" and marketed with Atari's Innovative leisure slogan.

Later in 1974, Gran Trak 10 was repackaged into a smaller cabinet and renamed "Trak 10".

The 2-Player version of this game is called "Gran Trak 20".

The game spawned a variety of spin-offs, both within Atari and by their competitors:
Atari: "Le Mans", "Sprint 4", "Sprint 8", "Championship Sprint", "Super Sprint", "Bad Lands"
Kee Games: "Formula K", "Twin Racer", "Indy 800", "Sprint 2", "Sprint One"
Taito: "Fisco 400"

Steve Wozniak (one of the founder of Apple) was a Gran Trak addict according to Steve Jobs in a 1985 PlayBoy interview.

SERIES

• Gran Trak 10 (1974)
• Trak 10 (1974)
• Gran Trak 20 (1974)
• Trak 20 (1974)

STAFF
Designed by: Steve Mayer, Larry Emmons

CONTRIBUTE
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