POLYTRACK, MEASURED
PolyTrack first session: the first thirty minutes
The first thirty minutes of PolyTrack are mostly spent learning two things: that the record is printed before you drive, and that a restart costs one key. This page is the order we would do it in, taken from our own first session.
TESTED
The timings below are from one session on 2026-11-02: three runs of the same track, on the same machine, with the lap time read off the HUD.
Before you press anything
IN-GAME
The start screen prints the controls themselves, so nobody has to guess:
Welcome to PolyTrack! Use W A S D or the arrow keys to start driving.
A track opens on a countdown, and the corner block already shows the track name, its record and your rank. Along the bottom sit three columns — record, current, difference — and the checkpoint counter.
Three rules that cost us a minute each
- Make the window fullscreen before you time anything. Our first lap was 1:29.748 with the game inside the CrazyGames page; the same track went to 0:27.198 in fullscreen. Whatever the cause (see performance), a lap set in a busy tab is not a number worth comparing.
- Read the corner block before the countdown ends. It tells you what you are racing against. On a track you have never finished it reads empty and fills in a few seconds later — waiting for it is legal.
- Restart with T or Backspace, not the mouse. The finish prompt says so: Press T / Backspace to try again and improve your time. The store page only documents Enter and R.
Our first three runs
| Attempt | Lap | What changed | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 01:29.748 | windowed tab, game inside the CrazyGames page | 14:34 |
| 2 | 00:27.198 | fullscreen, same track, second run | 14:49 |
| 3 | 00:26.583 | same session, third run: ahead of the record by 0.584 s | 14:50 |
TESTED
Same track (Summer 1, three checkpoints), same driver, twenty minutes apart. The 3.3× spread is why we do not publish a lap time without saying what it was set in.
What to look at after a lap
- the finish card: your time, your rank, and a red or green delta against the record
- the corner block a second later — once your lap is the fastest on that track, the record field becomes your own time
- the split row above the timer, which appears per checkpoint rather than per lap
The obvious detour
Seventeen official tracks is a small game, and the editor is where it stops being one. We would still spend the first session on the official tracks: the editor has its own rules (see the editor), and arriving with a feel for the car makes the first build less frustrating.
NEEDS CHECK
Two beginner questions we cannot answer yet: whether restarting keeps the ghost loaded, and whether a rank needs an account at all. Both need a signed-out session and a signed-in one side by side.