What’s manlier than racing around a track at 160mph, or drifting around a track in Tokyo, or rushing past your friends in a GoKart? Well, that would be to crash into your friends in a real Demolition Derby, but that’s ok, Racers Island have that and more! Racers Island Raceway has the complete racing experience, with 18 tracks and a mall. Each of the tracks represents one of several different styles of racing, making it easy for you to find something you like.
Race Island was started by Eddie Mathieson in March 2007, making it the oldest standing raceway in SL, and they also have one of the largest shopping venues for racing enthusiasts in SL, with both their own cars and many other of the grids finest motorsmiths. The cars sold by the establishment are sold as copy/mod/no trans, enabling you to cutomize your car to your own liking. The exception to this is their Go Karts and Battle Cars, however these are scripted with color change and numbering system for your customizing pleasure. All of their cars give you a fully personalized experience and the highest possible performance.
Not only can you buy cars here, you can also by your own Go Kart tracks in one of the shops and complete race systems, including lap counters (that also keep track of individual statistics for each racer), kart rezers (where you can store Go Karts you bought from that creator and dispenses them for your visitors/contestants) and many more features. This makes it easy for you if you wish to set up your own races on your sim and brings a different kind of competition to SL.
The cars sold by Racers Island isn’t just for fun, if you get one of their cars, you’re also able to join in any of their four weekly contests, for chances of competing against some of SL’s finest drivers. The competitions are as follows:
Sundays are Stock Car racing, barreling around a choice of 6 tracks with up to 7 other contestants, trying to achieve the fastest lap speed.
Prizes: 1st 500L$, 2nd 300L$, 3rd 150L$, 4th 100L$, 5th 75L$, 6th 50L$
Tuesday is Battle Cars, a race just for fun in the style of Mario Karts or Twisted Metal, with an assortment of weaponry and gadgets to mess with your co-contestants or help yourself get to the finish line first. There are no prizes for this beyond the humor, great time and honor, but on the flip side, the cars are provided by the establishments. You can choose between one of these 6 wacky contraptions: Tank, F1 Racer, Bath Tub, Trike or Old Beat Up Car.
Thursdays are alternating between Go Karts and Drift Cars. For drifting you can choose one of the 9 Drift tracks available and for the Go Karts you can choose any of the Drift or Stock tracks, giving you a whooping 15 tracks to choose from. The rules are the same as for the Stock Cars, get to the finish line in the shortest time possible while competing against up to 7 others.
Prizes for Drift is the same as Stock Cars.
Prizes for Go Karts: 1st – 300L$, 2nd – 150L$, 3rd – 100$L, 4th – 75$L, 5th – 50$L, 6th – 25$L
Saturdays they have Demolition Derby. Run by the Race Manager Nella Boccara, it’s one of the busiest racing events in SL. This is the only one that costs to join, with a 20L$ buy-in (that’s no typo, it’s twenty lindens) per race. This race has its own track and is a Total Carnage Smash-n’-Bash, meaning the first one who gets their car demolished to the point where they can’t continiue gets a portion of the total pot, and the last one standing gets the balance.
Prizes: Variable, dependent on number of contestants.
Unless there’s a contest going on, all 18 tracks are open to everyone and you may try the tracks with any vehicle you wish (within reason, so please don’t bring something that might crash the sim or disturb others), you can bring something you bought in the mall or something you got from somewhere else, cars, bikes, trikes, rolling couches, well, any vehicle really.
There is much help to be gotten from Racers Island if you are new to SL or racing in SL. By every teleporter and right at the landing spot, you have a big sign asking if you want to know more about racing. If you click it you will get three notecards, one giving you the rules and details of the competitions, one with general rules for the sim and one with very detailed instructions for how to set up your graphics in SL to reduce lag the best way to give you the best possible racing experience.
You don’t even need your own car to try the tracks out, by most of the tracks you have a car rezzer that will give you a demo car from Racers Islands assortments of cars, fully featured. This is a quick way to get a fair race between friends, a fun way for you to test the track or to test a car before you buy it from their store.
As a final note, I want to point out that this is a competitive place. As such, many of its regular visitors wishes to have the best possible environment to race in, and with lag in SL being an issue for everyone, it is greatly appreciated by everyone if you would try to limit the number of scripts you wear before going to Racers Island Raceway.