Night open wheel race: cars, sparks and the odd crash

Open-wheel racing cars at night, under floodlights, with sparks flying from the floor in the dips, make an exciting picture. Night open wheel race in Screensavers by Zaweba races on the same floodlit circuit as Night bike race, but with open-wheel race cars drawn as small 3D models. Rear lights flash, sparks fly in the dips, and every so often a car crashes.

It is part of the night pack: dark surroundings, floodlights and a few bright, fast things. It's the most dramatic screensaver in the app.

Crashes and what follows

When a car crashes, it may spin, slide along the wall or barrel roll. Smoke rises and yellow marshal lights come on, as they would on a real circuit when there's trouble on track. It's quick and it adds a bit of tension, because you never quite know when the next one will be.

You decide how often that happens. The crashes setting has four choices: never, rarely, now and then, and often. Never keeps it a clean race, which is the better choice if young children will be watching or if you just want a smooth drive. Rarely makes a crash a surprise. Now and then gives a steady trickle of incidents. Often keeps the marshals busy.

The rest of the settings

Other cars sets how many rivals are on track with you. Fewer cars gives a clearer view of the circuit, more cars a proper race.

Twistiness sets the shape of the track, from long sweeping bends to one bend after another. The blur settings soften the far distance and smear fast movement, which adds depth and a sense of speed. On a large, sharp monitor, easing the blur back a little keeps the cars crisp.

Car colours lets you choose your car's colours, so you can run in a favourite team's livery or simply in a colour you like.

Choosing your race

Start in the manager with the live preview open. Choose how often you want crashes first, because it sets the character of the whole thing. Then the number of cars, the twistiness, the blur and finally your colours. A middling number of cars, crashes rarely and a moderately twisty track is a good, watchable starting point.

Then press Preview full screen to see it at real size. The sparks, the flashing rear lights and the blur all read much better full screen. Moving the mouse or pressing a key closes it.

Starting the race

Use this screensaver builds it into your profile with no administrator rights needed and opens Windows' Screen Saver Settings, where you choose the wait time and the password option. Settings are read each time the screensaver starts, so a new livery or a change in crash frequency needs no rebuild.

With more than one monitor, you can run a race on each screen, one race stretched across all of them, or the main monitor only with the others black.

Sensible limits

Crashes often, lots of cars and a very twisty track can make a busy screen to sit beside all day. If it feels too much, set crashes to rarely first. On a laptop, a 30 frames per second cap in Install and options and the battery saver keep it light.

It makes a natural set with Night bike race and Night motorway. Tick all three in Install several for one screensaver that picks one at random each time it starts. Reset to defaults returns every setting to where it began.