What is rally driving?
Rallying
Rally is a form of motorsport that takes place on public or private roads with modified production or specially built road-legal cars. It is distinguished by running not on a circuit, but instead in a point-to-point format in which participants and their co-drivers drive between set control points (special stages), leaving at regular intervals from one or more start points. Rallies may be won by pure speed within the stages or alternatively by driving to a predetermined ideal journey time within the stages.
Sega Rally Championship
"Sega Rally Championship" was directed by Kenji Sasaki, a former Namco employee known for his work on "Ridge Racer". Seeking to develop a racing game that was distinct from the popular arcade titles "Ridge Racer" and "Daytona USA", Sasaki chose the rally racing subgenre, which he felt was "taboo" in the Japanese gaming community: "We were after something in vogue in terms of motorsport racing and as we were keen on great engine sounds, cool cars and great sensations—the obvious choice was rally." While the game featured only three cars—the Toyota Celica GT-Four, Lancia Delta Group A, and a hidden Lancia Stratos—it was distinguished by its "stylized handling" and some tuning options. Asked why the developers chose to use the Celica and Delta, team manager Hiroto Kikuchi answered, "We felt that in the rally, we had to use real rally cars and the chosen vehicles were well known and looked good." Senior programmer Riyuchi Hattori added, "Originally there was talk of using another car from Toyota, but we couldn't find a good one. For example, the Supra would have been just the same as the Celica and not much fun to use in the game, so we ended up with just the one. We also took note of the consumers' opinions, which confirmed that if another car was to be added it should be the Stratos." According to game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, "we had no experience in driving those cars", but after repeated requests Toyota and Fiat provided feedback for game testing. Fiat also made a gentlemen's agreement with the developers allowing the use of official logos and such in "Sega Rally Championship"; there was no formal sponsorship deal for the game. Mizuguchi's car was used to produce the in-game sound of the Lancia Delta's engine. While developing the game's visual style, the development team spent three weeks driving from the West Coast of the United States to Mexico, taking photographs for use in texture mapping. At one point, Sasaki became deeply worried about "Rally"'s prospects for success, and even began to question why driving cars was considered "fun". To clear his mind, "I drove up into the mountains with my own car. It was such an enjoyable and exhilarating experience ... This was how the third mountain track in the game was conceived".