The racing games with global leaderboards worth climbing are Mars Rally Championship, our own free browser rally game, plus PolyTrack and DashCraft.io in a browser tab, with Trackmania and Mario Kart World as the best-known download and console picks. A board earns trust when a run is checked before its time posts, when you can watch the run, and when you can race its ghost. Mars Rally Championship's server re-simulates every submitted run from its recorded inputs and posts its own time, not the one your browser claims.
Screenshot: the Stage 1 board on this site, with forward, reversed and storm tabs; every run carries REPLAY, to watch it, and RACE, to drive its ghost.
The quick picks
- Boards checked before a time posts: Mars Rally Championship (ours, and the only pick it takes).
- A board on every track, with replays, in a browser: PolyTrack. A filter hides unverified runs.
- A board you race rather than read: DashCraft.io. Every opponent is a finisher's ghost; desktop only.
- Country and friends boards in a browser: Track Racer IO, an early build.
- Most competitive boards, if you will install a game: Trackmania.
- Console rankings with downloadable ghosts: Mario Kart World, on Nintendo Switch 2.
What makes a racing leaderboard trustworthy
A leaderboard is only as trustworthy as its least-checked time, because one forged run at the top devalues every rank below it. Four questions decide it: when is a run checked, can you watch and race it, whose name is on it, and which board holds it.
Checked before it posts, or after
Racing leaderboards use three checking models, which differ in how long a bad time can sit at the top.
Checked before it posts. Mars Rally Championship's server re-simulates each submitted input tape and refuses one that doesn't reproduce its own checksums and finish. The posted time is the server's own.
Checked after it posts. PolyTrack, per its developer on itch.io, has users with a verifier role run an automated service that verifies leaderboard runs "after a while". Since version 0.4.0 you can filter out non-verified results, so the default view can include times nobody has checked yet.
Scans and community investigation. Nadeo, Trackmania's developer, runs anti-cheat software whose details it doesn't publish, and the 2021 case covered below came from players studying replays.
Diagram: where each board's check sits against the moment a time posts, and so how long an unchecked time can sit on the board.
A replay you can watch and a ghost you can race
Watching the top run is the public audit, and racing its ghost is how you learn from it. Mars Rally Championship puts REPLAY, which rebuilds a run from its recorded inputs, and RACE, which drives its ghost beside you, on every board row. PolyTrack added replays from the leaderboard in 0.4.0, and Trackmania loads leaderboard ghosts from its records widget, though that needs Club access.
In Mars Rally Championship the two are different recordings. A replay is rebuilt from inputs and matches the original run bit for bit. A ghost is a 30 fps pose track, the translucent rover you race, recorded by the server's re-simulation for board runs. Ghost racing games covers how the genre uses them.
Whose name is on the time
Mars Rally Championship needs no account: a name is a call sign of up to 20 characters kept in your browser, "PILOT" by default. An optional wallet link puts a ✓ and the wallet's address on your verified times, and a call sign claimed through it is held on the board: a run keeps the name only from a browser where that wallet is connected, and goes up as PILOT from anywhere else. Look-alike letters from other alphabets aren't folded together, so a call sign can still be imitated. Trackmania needs a Ubisoft account. For PolyTrack and DashCraft.io we could not confirm what posting a time needs.
Separate boards for separate conditions
Boards can only rank comparable times. Mars Rally Championship gives every stage three boards, forward, reversed and storm, each with one best time per pilot, so a dust-storm run never shares a board with one driven in clear air. PolyTrack keeps one board per track. Trackmania keeps records per map, and each Track of the Day has its own 24-hour board.
What we compared: when each game checks a run, whether you can watch any board run, whether you can race its ghost, how the boards are split, and what you need to post a time. Competitor details come from each game's devlog, documentation or store listing and from dated press reports; a cell says "not confirmed" where none of them states it. Mars Rally Championship's come from its code. Last checked: October 2026.
Racing games with leaderboards, compared
Mars Rally Championship is first because it is ours; the rest are browser games first, then downloads and console games, each labelled.
| Game | Where it runs | When a run is checked | Watch any board run | Race a board run's ghost | Boards | To post a time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mars Rally Championship Play | Browser | Before posting: the server re-simulates the input tape | Yes, REPLAY on every run | Yes, RACE on every run | 3 per stage: forward, reversed, storm | A call sign; no account |
| PolyTrack | Browser | After posting: an automated verifier; unverified runs can be filtered out | Yes, since 0.4.0 | Yes, picked from the board | One per track | Not confirmed |
| DashCraft.io | Browser, desktop only | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | Yes, every opponent is a board ghost | One per player-built track | Not confirmed |
| Track Racer IO | Browser, early build | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | Yes | Global, country, friends | Not confirmed |
| Trackmania (download) | PC and consoles | Anti-cheat scans and community replay checks; method unpublished | Yes, ghosts load from the records widget (Club) | Yes, with Club access | Per map; 24-hour Track of the Day | Ubisoft account |
| Mario Kart World (console) | Nintendo Switch 2 | Not confirmed | Yes, View Replay on downloaded ghosts | Yes, download from rankings | Per course | Not confirmed |
| Musclecar Online (download) | Steam | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | Other players' ghost laps, by car type and division | Daily and monthly rankings | Steam |
Mars Rally Championship: every board run is re-simulated before it posts
Our game, listed first for that reason. This is Mars Rally Championship's own site; everything below it is grouped browser first, then downloads and console, and judged on its merits.
Mars Rally Championship is a free 3D rally racing game that runs in the browser with no download, no install, no account and no ads. Three stages are drivable: Stage 1, The Eight, a 2,676 m night loop and a new pilot's first timed stage; Stage 2, The Long Run, 2,306 m; and Stage 3, The Opener, 1,164 m and steep.
Mars Rally Championship's physics steps at a fixed 60 Hz, whatever the display's refresh rate, and every run records its controls once per step as an input tape of a few kilobytes. Replaying the tape through the same simulation reproduces the run bit for bit, and a checksum of the whole sim state every second proves it. The server does exactly that with each submission: a tape that doesn't reproduce its checksums and finish is refused, the posted time is the server's, and there is no other way onto a board. The determinism behind it has its own write-up.
In-game screenshot: a Stage 1 board run at night, rebuilt from its input tape and seen from the DRONE replay camera.
The leaderboard hub shows each board in full, 50 runs a sheet. Every row has REPLAY and RACE, and any board replay can be saved as a video. Since 4 October 2026, online race times post automatically under your call sign, are re-simulated like any run, and carry an ONLINE tag, which needs a ticket only the race server can sign. Multiplayer rooms take up to 8 pilots.
The limits are real. The boards are young and thin, because a board restarts when the simulation or its stage changes and its old runs stop re-simulating: every board on 22 and 23 September 2026, and the Stage 1 and Stage 3 boards again on 11 October 2026, when the stages were renumbered. Three stages with three boards each make nine boards, a small catalogue beside PolyTrack's board on every track. A call sign is held only if you claim it with the wallet link. Each board time is stored with its input tape, so "no account" is true and "stores nothing" is not.
Play free — no downloadPolyTrack: verified runs, with a filter
PolyTrack is Kodub's free time-attack game, and it runs in a browser tab. Version 0.3.0 added leaderboards. Version 0.4.0, released on 29 July 2024, added replays from the leaderboard, a button to jump to your position and the filter for non-verified results. Version 0.5.2, in November 2025, shows your leaderboard position on a new best.
Checking happens after the time posts. Players in the game's itch.io community say the automated checks catch most cheating, while tool-assisted runs or a slowed game can still get through, and reports go to a Discord channel.
PolyTrack has a board on every track and the replay tooling to match; for pure time attack in a browser it is the game to open first. See browser time trial racing games for the wider genre.
DashCraft.io: the leaderboard is the opponent list
DashCraft.io turns the board into the field. Its CrazyGames listing says every opponent is the ghost of another player who finished the track, and that you beat their time to outdo them on the leaderboard. Tracks are player-built, the game runs in a desktop browser only, and the listing shows a February 2022 release and a last update in October 2024.
We could not confirm how its runs are checked or whether you can watch a board run, so you race its leaderboard on trust.
Track Racer IO: global, country and friends boards
Track Racer IO is a browser racing game whose developer calls the build rough and early. According to the developer's posts, it has global, country and friends leaderboards, a ranked ladder, and ghosts of your fastest lap and of other players. We could not confirm how runs are checked. It is worth watching rather than relying on.
Leaderboards outside the browser
These three need an install or a console; they are here for comparison.
Trackmania (download)
Trackmania (2020) is the benchmark for time-attack boards: every map has its own records. Per Trackmania's documentation, a leaderboard ghost loads from the eye icon in the records widget, or you can spectate it, but that needs Club access. Starter access is free, Club is a paid subscription, and a Ubisoft account is needed. See also Trackmania in a browser.
Mario Kart World (Nintendo Switch 2)
Mario Kart World's Time Trials have rankings, and you can download ghost data from friends, top players or the developers, then race the ghost or watch its replay. A patch in August 2025 (version 1.2.1) fixed the wrong ghost playing after one was downloaded from View Rankings. We could not confirm how runs are verified.
Musclecar Online (download)
Musclecar Online's Steam listing gives it daily and monthly rankings, a new track every day at midnight GMT, and other players' ghost laps to race, grouped by car type and sorted into divisions. We could not confirm how runs are checked or whether it is still updated.
Why a replay alone doesn't prove a time
A replay proves less than it seems to. In 2021, an investigation led by the YouTuber Wirtual concluded that some top Trackmania records had been driven with the game slowed down, then played back at normal speed. PC Gamer reported that one of the accused players, techno, admitted using 40 to 80 percent game speed. A clean replay of a valid lap can still come from a slowed game.
Mars Rally Championship is not exempt, so here is what its check does. Re-simulation refuses a forged time, a modified physics build, and a tape that doesn't reproduce its own checksums and finish, and it posts the server's time. It does not prove a person drove at full speed, and no replay check can: the server sees inputs, not a person, and can't tell whether they were pressed at full speed, slowed down or scripted. What the design buys is that every board run can be watched and raced, so anyone can see a run that looks wrong.
Diagram: the server checks the tape, not the pilot; a slowed game gives a pilot 2.5 seconds for each second of the run at 40 percent speed.
Read any board the same way: ask when a run was checked, then watch the top run before you chase it.
Where to try this
- Stage 1, The Eight: the night loop. Set a time, then find your row on its board.
- The leaderboards: three boards per stage, with REPLAY and RACE on every run.
- Online races: up to 8 pilots, and your finish posts tagged ONLINE.
- Racing games with daily challenges: a daily run goes on its stage's forward board.