Scoring, Leaderboards and Fair Play
How a set of three races is scored in points, what the server times, which sets reach the leaderboard, how names work without accounts, and an honest account of what does and does not stop a rigged result.
Two numbers matter in Daily Dirt Rally: the points you score over a set of three races, and, when points tie, how long the three races took you in total. This page explains exactly how those numbers are produced, stored and displayed, and where the limits of the system are.
Points: a set of three races
GO RACE and Play with friends both run a set of three races, on three different tracks, with the same eight drivers in the same truck colours all the way through. Every race is two laps. Each race scores points by finishing place: 10, 8, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0 points for first to eighth. The points from the three races add up, and the computer drivers score like everyone else.
| Place | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
The standings are ordered by total points. Two drivers on the same points are ordered by the lower total time, and if that is level too, by who was ahead before the race. The standings decide the grid: races 2 and 3 line up in standings order, leader at the front. A perfect set is three wins and 30 points.
What the clock measures
The server keeps the clock, one clock for the whole room. Each race is timed from the moment the three-second countdown clears to the moment you cross the finish line on your second valid lap. Everything in between counts: time lost against the wall at the edge of the dirt, time spent reversing out of a corner you overcooked, and the seconds you spent collecting a canister you never spent. Your total time is the sum of your three races.
A lap is only valid if you passed the checkpoint on it, so the timer cannot be beaten by shortcutting. If the lap counter refuses to advance when you cross the line, you missed the gate — the how to play guide covers what to do about it.
A race ends when every human driver in it has finished, or 30 seconds after the first truck crosses the line (two minutes in a rookie set, which waits for its rookie), whichever comes first. A truck still racing at that moment is placed behind the finishers by how far round the track it got, and its time for that race is the moment the race ended. Anyone who finished always places ahead of anyone who did not.
Which sets reach the leaderboard
Only GO RACE sets go on the daily leaderboard. A GO RACE lobby always has a full grid of eight, computer drivers filling the seats no human took, so every one of its sets is a race against a full field. A Play with friends lobby can be a host alone, who would win every race, so Play with friends sets do not go on the leaderboard. Final Standings says so where the button would be.
A new player’s first GO RACE set is the other exception. It is a rookie set, raced in a lobby kept for new drivers against easy computer drivers only, and it is not ranked: the server records nothing for it, and Final Standings says your next set counts. Reaching Final Standings, or a name saved from the leaderboard, ends it. See the multiplayer guide.
The board ranks whole sets: most points first, then the lower total time. The front page shows the ten best sets of the day, with both numbers, plus yesterday’s champion.
Any human still in the room at Final Standings can enter a name, including a driver whose connection dropped during the set and came back — the computer drove their truck while they were away. A driver who left on purpose cannot: their truck finished the set for them, but nobody is there to name the result. A set goes on the board once.
What gets stored
When a GO RACE set ends, the server keeps its result for each human who can still enter it (a rookie set keeps none): the points, the total time and the track date, with no name on it. When you press the button and type a name, that result becomes a leaderboard entry. Each stored entry is deliberately minimal:
| Field | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Name | Up to 10 characters, chosen per set |
| Points | Total over the set’s three races |
| Time | Total race duration over the three races, in milliseconds |
| Track date | Which day’s tracks it was set on |
| Created | Timestamp of submission |
There is no account, no email address, no password and no profile. Nothing links two entries by the same name to the same person, and nothing links either to you. What the privacy policy says we store is genuinely all we store.
Names
Names are chosen at submission time and capped at ten characters. They are checked against a profanity filter, and a name that fails is rejected rather than silently censored — you will be asked for a different one, and the set is not used up.
Names are not reserved or owned. Two people can use the same name on the same day, and one person can put several sets on the board under the same name. Because every set creates its own entry, a strong driver can legitimately occupy more than one slot in the top ten. It is a quirk of the design rather than a bug, and it makes the board read as a list of the day’s ten best sets rather than its ten best people.
How the board resets
Every entry is filed against the track date it was driven on, so the leaderboard resets with the tracks. At the rollover, today’s sets move to yesterday, the front page starts showing the previous day’s champion, and the new board opens empty. Nothing is deleted — the previous day’s entries remain filed against that date.
Days from before sets began had one race and a board ranked by time alone, and they keep it. From the day sets began, a board shows sets only.
Fair play, honestly
We would rather tell you how this works than imply protection that does not exist.
For a GO RACE set the numbers come from the server, not from your browser. The server follows every truck round the track, times each finish on its own clock, decides the finishing order, awards the points and keeps your set as the record; when you enter a name, your browser sends only the name and the id of that record, never points or a time. What the server does not do is check that a truck’s movements are physically possible: each player’s browser still reports where its own truck is, so a modified browser could report a drive it never made. The daily board is protected from made-up numbers, but not from a rigged truck.
What that means in practice:
- We remove implausible entries. Sets whose total time is below what the tracks’ length and the truck’s top speed physically allow get deleted when we spot them. The terms of service reserve that right explicitly.
- Checking the drive is planned. The server already follows every truck round the lap and knows each track’s length, so rejecting a set that is faster than the truck can go is a tractable next step rather than a rewrite. It will appear in the changelog when it ships.
- There is nothing to win. No prizes, no ranking that carries over, no currency. The board resets in a matter of hours. Faking a set buys you a few hours of a name on a list, which is a poor return on the effort.
Getting a genuinely good set
If you want to be at the top of the board honestly, the order of gains is fairly consistent:
- Stay off the wall. A trip into the green edge of the dirt costs more than any other single mistake. See track limits.
- Brake later. The brake is far stronger than it feels, and most drivers give away a second a lap braking early. See cornering.
- Spend every canister on a long straight. Three well-placed boosts are worth several seconds; three badly-placed ones are worth nothing. See nitro timing.
- Win race 1. The grid for race 2 follows the standings, so a win puts you at the front of it, with clear road ahead.
- Learn the three tracks before you count a set. They do not change all day, and a Play with friends lobby uses the same three as GO RACE. Its sets do not go on the board, so there is nothing at stake while you learn them.
Questions this did not answer are probably in the frequently asked questions.