Board Games that will lure Race Car Lovers to the Table...

You know there's two of us behind this blog right? Well there is also a supporting cast of characters, a.k.a. our awesome guest posters, but mainly it's Shari and I. We both love games in all their incarnations, however Shari is more into the mainstream stuff, while I'm into more "heavy" gaming. Particularly when it comes to board games. 

For a while now I've been plotting, trying to devise ways to lure Shari deeper into board games. Then last week she reviewed a copy of GMT's stock car racing game, Thunder Alley. This might have been a bit of a deep jump for a first dip into euro-style board games. But it got me thinking. Shari loves two things above all others, knitting and NASCAR. I've yet to see a board game based on knitting (though heaven help us there IS a knitting video game). However over the years I've tried a few other racing games, while they weren't my personal all time favourite board games I could see Shari digging these. So I concocted this list and figured I'd share it with you all:

First, Monza by HABA. Now this one is admittedly a kids game, but I could see Shari enjoying playing it with her boys.

Monza. Adorable race car pieces and colourful track.

The general idea is you role coloured dice and decide what route to take on the colour coded race track. Aside from colour matching, there's some deductive thinking, as often there is more than once possible way to go and you need to figure out which path will get you around the track quicker. My daughters love playing Monza. It's also on that rather short list of kids board games that I actually don't mind playing along with them.

Next up is PitchCar. To be honest I despise playing this game because it is dexterity based. However it's a frequent favourite at the local public play events my husband and I help to organize and run. The basic idea is flick your little round wooden disc (aka your race car) around the track without crashing or flying off the board. 

That's an 8-foot table. PitchCar takes up SPACE

The game is a bit on the pricey side. That's because the track pieces are made of wood. I don't have to enjoy playing the game to be able to appreciate the fact that it's sturdy, well crafted, and allows for all kinds of interesting track layouts. If you add in a few PitchCar extension packs you can end up with some pretty elaborate tracks. Even with just the base game you end up with a surprisingly large track, up to 12 feet long, which means you need a big play space to accommodate this one. (There's a mini version of PitchCar out as well, but I have yet to see it in person. From what I've seen online I suspect the quality is the same as the full size game.)

Now on to my favourite racing themed board game, Formula D. The game simulates racing Formula One style cars on both official F1 track and street tracks. It's a strategic game with a fairly high luck factor. As a player you are in charge of your race car. You need to decide which gears to shift into and when, with each gear providing a different range of speed (aka you roll different dice based on which gear you're in). 

Formula D, nifty player board with neat gear shift mechanic.

Your car also has a sort of hit point system you need to track. You take penalties for things like bumping into other cars or having to suddenly downshift multiple gears. Flip the board to the street track and you switch to the thrill of illegal racing, with new elements like nitro acceleration and gun battles.

Finally, honourable mention goes to Daytona 500. While I've never played it, I couldn't pass up on mentioning this specifically NASCAR themed board game which was put out by Milton Bradley in 1990. It rates reasonably well on Board Game Geek and the photos I've seen make it look like an interesting game, but as far as I can tell it's out of print. Is it worth the after market price of $90 and up that I see it going for on Amazon and eBay? I'm not sure.

What other racing themed games have you folks tried? What would you recommend?