For 35 years, Todd Rogers has held the world record time for the Atari 2600’s Dragster , as curated by the infamous Twin Galaxies organization. After controversy raised by the community, followed by research and debate, that record has been rendered invalid. Record-holder Todd Rogers has also been banned from Twin Galaxies.
Rogers originally submitted his record of 5.51 seconds in Dragster to Activision in 1982. This was when completing challenges in Atari games could be exchanged for special patches from the publisher, and the record was also published in Activision’s newsletter. The record was added to Twin Galaxies in 2001, and Rogers also received a Guinness World Record in 2017 for having the longest-standing gaming record.
However, while Rogers explained how he nailed his record on his website, he never provided any tangible proof, such as a recording. When Twin Galaxies introduced a process to dispute scores in July 2017, Rogers’ Dragster record quickly fell under scrutiny. Another Dragster record-chaser, who goes by Omnigamer, claimed the 5.51-second record is actually impossible. Going into the game’s code and using a TAS to provide evidence, Omnigamer showed that as low as 5.54 seconds should not be physically possible.
Source: Polygon