GAME DESCRIPTION Lets one or two players compete head-to-head with a birdīs eye view over eight gruelling tracks. It's a race day at LeMans, and your car is in the pole position. The countdown lights signal the start of the race. Hold down the [FIRE BUTTON], which is your gas pedal, and you're off and running on a tricky, sometimes hazardous Grand Prix track. Your goal is to pass as many cars as you can. The more cars you pass the more points you make. Every 10 cars ppassed gives you 1000 bonus points. If you score more than 20,000 points before time runs out, you're still in the lead and can continue the race. Passing the other drivers is not easy, they will try to block you whenever they can. And, since this is Grand Prix racing at its best, you must maneuver your car over a variety of terrains, including icy roads, divided highways, night driving, and the famous "LeMans Esses". STRATEGY The key to winning at LeMans is to drive as fast as you can as long as you can. Since you're in the pole position you won't encounter any cars for the first 2000 meters (points). After that, the roadway will become more and more crowded with cars, and the road itself will shift, narrow and widen slightly as you drive. In the beginning of the race you should be able to drive, pretty much down the middle of the highway. But once the traffic gets heavy it's better to keep to the LEFT side of the road and weave only when necessary. There is a second advantage to keeping left. When your car bumps or collides with another vehicle, you will be forced into THE PIT to repair the damage. THE PIT is ALWAYS on the LEFT. So, if your car is on the right side of the road, you have to cross the track to get to it. Of course any cars that may try to pass you and fail will damage you further. This translates into valuable racetime lost. Notice that on BOTH SIDES of the track there is a SHOULDER area. If rival racecars try to keep you from passing, you can use the shoulder of the road to slip by. Be careful, because if you move too far onto the shoulder you will crash. Incidentally, driving on the shoulder will slow your car slightly. You can turn this into an advantage by using it as a "brake pedal" without taking your foot off the gas (finger off the fire button). HANDLING HAZARDOUS ROAD SURFACES ICE: Driving on ICE (white road surface) makes maneverability more difficult. To compensate, you'll have to turn the wheel (paddle) more than on normal roads in order to shift your car right or left. NIGHT: Driving at NIGHT (black road surface) require great skill. You will only be able to see the taillights of the cars around you, and the silhouettes of the cars that enter the path of your headlights. There are two ways to handle this condition. One is to say left as long as possible and slide onto the shoulder when a car is near you. The other is to drive in the middle while shifting back and forth slightly. In this case your headlights should give you a good picture of what lies ahead. THE ESSES: Driving through the ESSES (red road surface) is a lot harder than it looks. The key to this driving condition is to start in the middle of the track and then move to the left and "hug" the edge of the road while dodging upcoming cars. This may become more difficult to do as you move into higher levels of play. DIVIDED HIGHWAY: Driving on the DIVIDED HIGHWAY is tricky, but not impossible. You will know that the Divided Highway is coming up because a WARNING SIGNAL FLASHES at the top-center of your screen. When the warning flashes that should be a cue that the road is about to divide and you should move left or right to avoid the median barrier. The Divided Highway cuts the road into two sections. Each section has only two lanes. The key to driving this section successfully is your use of the shoulders. In addition to normal passing conditions, you can actually move your car fully onto the shoulder to pass another vehicle. This is dangerous but, as they say, "practice makes perfect". THE PIT Every time your car is hit by another vehicle (it turns two shades of gray and stops moving) the edges of the road surface turn pink and the PIT sign appears at the top of the screen. This means that you MUST move off the road and enter the PINK PIT LANE on the LEFT. A few seconds after you move onto the pit lane, your car will return to normal and you can continue racing. However, there are a few strategic points that can minimize your time in the pit. First, DON'T take you finger off the fire button. Your car will NOT come to a dead stop as it would if you do take your finger off. In fact, once you're in the PIT you can use the pink pit lane to increase your speed until you get back on the track. Second, a crash automatically resets all cars passed in a round to 0. This means that even if you've passed 9 cars before the crash none of them will be counted toward the bonus score mentioned in the GAME DESCRIPTION above. Third, all cars passed while your car is still in the pit do NOT count toward the bonus score. Finally, even if you try to wait out the crash on the roadway, all that will happen is that other cars will continue to crash into you until the "pit crew" automatically moves your car into the pit lane. CONTROLS LeMans is designed to be played using a PADDLE ONLY. 1. Plug your paddle into CONTROL PORT 1. 2. Press the F1 key or the PADDLE FIRE BUTTON to START the game. 3. The FIRE BUTTON is your GAS PEDAL. Hold the button IN to go FASTER. Let the button OUT to go SLOWER. 4. The PADDLE KNOB is your STEERING WHEEL. Turn the knob CLOCKWISE to go RIGHT. Turn the knob COUNTER--CLOCKWISE to go LEFT. 5. The RESTORE KEY will RESET the game without resetting the HIGH SCORE. It can be used to start a game over. SCORING Racecar Speed - 2 points per meter Cars Passed - 1000 points per 10 cars passed Extended Time - 20000 points scored When you fail to make the required 20,000 points before time runs out the game will take control of your car and drive to the GAME OVER line.