If you have run this game for a while you might’ve seen that you sometimes get strange time saves with identical driving. I’ve been clueless about the cause but @Jfred might’ve solved it. T The theory follows:

If you continue playing without hard resets between the runs the time save starts to appear. So as long as you reset between the runs witch the rules states, they shouldn’t appear.

If you get a time save even with resets (for example a 57” 03 in the first stage instead of 57” 68) then the theory might be wrong. In that case, please write in the post!

Otherwise we’re good to go and can keep the IGT witch is the best option IMO.

Cheers!

Thank you for your input @Nimn_One !

I was thinking about it today and thought to add Glitchless and Glitched categories. Glitchless would have to show a 57'68" or slower while Glitched would have to show a 1st split faster than 57'68".

I personally don't feel like spending all day trying to reproduce this rare glitch and I bet many of you wouldn't either.

But let me know, if you guys don't like it, I'll revert it back.

I assumed we had maxed out the non-glitched run since our times were so close and seemed free of any noticeable errors. I'm surprised to see a 4:42 especially since it looks like it was a full second behind going into stage 5, but there it is. Gives me an excuse to do some more runs.

I'm sure that not resetting is what leads to the lower splits. It makes it a little harder to grind because you have to keep finishing runs or at least let the timer run out. I think I discovered it because I was deliberately doing no reset runs to practice the end stages and noticed the lower stage 1 splits.

My glitched vs non-glitched PBs felt exactly the same and in real time they are. I drove the same route and made no mistakes. The glitched run saved exactly .26 on each of the first 4 stages which seems really unlikely. You're not going to improve the exact same faction of a section over 4 stages from one PB to the next. Possible, but highly unlikely. So maybe the amount saved in stage 1 is the same in the next 3 stages. If that's true it means a very low 57 split in a glitched run would save over a half second in each of the first four stages (if no mistakes are made) and sub 4:40 could be possible.

I totally believe it @JFred99. There's the same thing happening on OutRun for Game Gear. On the Game Gear version, if you play "Passing Breeze", you'll save a full second in the first stage but also gain time in the subsequent stages.

So, this glitch seems to be acting the same way but doesn't seem to be music-related though and it's really annoying not being able to figure out what causes it.

If one day we were able to find a consistent way to reproduce it, maybe we could then remove the glitched category, but until then I think it's better to keep those runs separate, personally.