What the racing event is
The October 10 mount update replaced Dr. Scramble's boss fights with something completely different: a kart-style race. Every 30 minutes a race portal opens, everyone who joins gets a racer pet, and you drive three laps around a looping track full of boost pads, item boxes and hazards. It's honestly one of the most fun things the game has added, and it's also the only way to get the new Nitro mutation, the Racing Bat and five new pets.
The event is temporary. It runs for about a week and ends with the Halloween update on Saturday, October 17, so if you want the rewards, grind it while it's here.
When and where races happen
- Every 30 minutes. The game announces "A race has appeared in Abyss Ocean" and a portal opens in the ocean biome.
- Walk into the portal quickly. You don't need a mount or any speed, but the portal only stays open for about a minute. Miss it and you wait for the next race.
- Wait for the countdown. The lobby waits about 40 to 60 seconds for other players. Each race has six racers; empty slots are filled with bots. The bots were made tougher after launch and use their items aggressively, so a full server of real players is often easier to win than a race against bots.
- Three laps, two to three minutes. Our fastest finish was 2 minutes 19 seconds.
You can keep driving after you finish, which is a free way to learn the track, and click Return Home when you're done.
Does your speed matter?
No. We entered with tens of trillions of speed and still had close races against players with a tiny fraction of that; everyone drives at the same base speed, and the race is decided by boosts, items and clean lines. That's great news for new players: a fresh account can win a race against a leaderboard account.
The racer doesn't matter for speed either. We raced the same track on the Ostrich, Seahorse, Lizard, Bird and Cheetah, and none of them was faster. They do handle differently: the Seahorse and Bird are slim and easy to steer, while the Lizard is wide, slow to accelerate and bounces off other racers, so we stopped using it. Pick the racer you like driving.
How to drive well
- Hit every green boost pad. There are three boost arrows on each lap. Missing one is the most common way to lose the lead, and the first one right after the start sets up the whole race. Run a few practice laps after you finish a race to learn where they are.
- Stay in the middle of the track. Corners and walls slow you down, especially on mobile.
- Jump. You can jump over dropped eggs and other hazards, and over the blasts on the loops.
- Watch the ground. Anything with red markings will knock you out of your stride.
Every item and what it does
Item boxes are scattered around each lap. You hold one item at a time and press E to use it.
- Spike. Throw it forward at the racer ahead of you, like a shell in a kart game, or drop it behind you. Good for defending first place.
- Egg Splatter. Drops an egg on the track. Anyone who drives over it slips. Place it just before a boost pad.
- Scrambled Shield. A bubble that blocks hits for a few seconds. Save it for the moment something is about to hit you, not the second you pick it up.
- Dr. Scramble pod. Launches one of his robots as a homing missile at a racer ahead of you.
- Drill. "Drill incoming" means a drill is heading for the leader. If you're first, have a shield ready.
- Royal Sky Whale. The rarest item: a speed burst of about three and a half seconds that can take you from fourth to first.
- Green chemical. Dr. Scramble's speed potion, the other rare speed boost.
When you're leading, hold a shield instead of using items the moment you get them; a Spike does little when nobody is ahead of you. Drop Egg Splatters right behind a boost pad, where the racers behind you have to drive. When you're behind, use everything immediately and pick up the next box.
Rewards: trophies and pets
Your finishing position decides your reward:
- Trophies. Every finisher gets trophies, more for a better place: about 2,500 for first, about 2,000 for second and around 1,750 for fourth. You only get them if you cross the finish line. The 2x Trophies pass (about 200 to 270 Robux) doubles that, so a win becomes 5,000.
- An Ostrich pet. Top finishers get an Ostrich as a pet. Our first place came with a rainbow Ostrich at about $4.4 billion per second; a golden one was around $2.6 billion. That's more than many eternals for a two-minute race.
The race shop
Click the trophy icon on the right of your screen to open the racing event menu. The shop sells:
- Nitro mutation (roughly 450 trophies each; 10,000 trophies bought us 22). Each use is about a 10% roll, like a Scrambled potion. It stacks with Scrambled and Enchanted, and we estimate it at about 1.9x. A pet with all three lands around 12.5 to 13 times its base: our 24,000 kg Race Cheetah went from $3.1 billion to $39 billion per second.
- Racing Bat (10,000 trophies). Big knockback, a checkered-flag trail and exhaust flames. We tested it on a willing volunteer and sent them across a biome. It's still clearly weaker than the Hammer, which knocks players much further.
- 1.25x speed (375 trophies), a 2x treadmill booster that lasts 10 minutes, and a 2x cash booster. The speed boost is a cheap way to steal bigger eggs than your stat allows; the treadmill booster doubles your speed gain while it lasts.
Our priority: the Racing Bat first if you contest divines, then Nitro on your heaviest eggs. See the mutations page for how Nitro fits into a stack.
Unlocking the racers
You start every race on an Ostrich. Wins unlock new racers, and each racer also comes as a pet egg:
| First-place wins | Racer | Rarity | Typical income |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Race Seahorse | Legendary | low |
| 5 | Race Lizard | Mythic | ~$1M/s |
| 15 | Race Bird | Cosmic | ~$13M/s |
| ~21 | Race Cheetah | Secret | ~$250M/s |
| 30 | Engine Snail | Eternal | ~$3B/s |
Only first places count as wins. Finishing second or third pays trophies but doesn't move you along this track, which is why the grind is harder than it looks.
Our first win gave us the Seahorse egg, which takes four minutes to hatch, and the Seahorse became available as a racer in the next race. Yes, the final racer is a snail with rocket boosters. A typical Engine Snail makes about $3 billion per second, and a big one about $12 billion. Racer pets are worth mutating if they're big: a heavy Cheetah with three mutations out-earned many divines.
After 30 wins the goal track keeps going: every five more wins pays 1,250 trophies, with no limit.
At one race every 30 minutes, 30 first places is a serious grind for a one-week event. It took us three to four hours of racing to get two extra wins on a bad night. Plan on several sessions a day if you want the Engine Snail.
Racing FAQ
Can I race on my own mount? No. Races use the racer pets from the event menu, not your mounts. Mounts are covered in the mounts guide.
Can I server hop for more races? It doesn't seem to help; races run on the same schedule everywhere, so you just wait for the next one.
What happens to trophies after the event? Spend them before the Halloween update. When the Dr. Scramble lab ended, unspent samples were lost, so assume trophies will go the same way.
Can racer pets be mounts? Yes, a racer pet you hatch can take a shooting star like any other pet, but it doesn't make you faster in races.
For everything else from the same update, read our mount update recap.