Overview
Grand Champion is a top-down car racing game. You have controls to move left and right, to accelerate, and to switch between low and high gear. Each level starts with you in last place behind a bunch of other cars, and you have to finish in the top three places by the time you reach the finish line.
During the race, there are several variations in the environment. These include a thunderstorm which makes the track more slippery and causes lightning bolts that must be dodged, a tunnel where vision is limited to the extent of the beams of your headlights, and a narrow bridge over water.
While the track is depicted as having bends or corners, it is actually mostly straight with occasional narrowing and slight deviations to the left or right. The major difficulty is in dodging cars while overtaking. Soft collisions with these cars will damage your car, which will need to be repaired by a stop at the pits (which occurs automatically). Harder collisions will require you to wait for a replacement car, making it difficult to catch your competitors. At various times during the race, the positions of the other cars on the track will be shown on a radar on the right of the screen. Your current rank is displayed at the top of the screen.
Finishing in the top three will allow you to compete in the next race, which has a similar track layout and a different coloured background, but a larger number of cars to overtake.
