The Racing Realms were created by the Accelerons to test a driver's skills, and are the focal point of all Acceleracers movies.
Overview
The Racing Realms were created by the ancient Accelerons. Highway 35 was just a test, but the Realms were more challenging and emphasized specific driving skills. The Accelerons designed each Realm with a specific skill that a driver must master to win. The Storm Realm, for example, required the driver to ignore distractions and focus on the track. Whoever wins the Realm will earn an Accelecharger, which grants the user's car a specific ability for the corresponding Realm.
The Racing Realms are accessed through the Wheel of Power. Each realm was represented by a symbol. When a realm is about to open, the wheel's three rings will rotate in all directions: First the center ring will stop and make a single symbol glow. Then the next ring will have the same symbol match on top of it and the same goes for the third ring. Once complete, the portal will open. A driver must reach 300 mph to reach the portal and access the Realm.
A racing realm stays open for one hour, and anything that doesn't make it out will be trapped in the Realm. If the Realm is not completed, then it will reopen at an indeterminate time. If a car crosses the portal just as it closes, anything on the other side will be cut off leaving behind glowing hot metal. According to Gig, the Wheel of Power will not open the same realm twice after it has been completed.
Every realm has many hazards that try to prevent anyone or anything from leaving the realm, such as traps or monsters. This is most explained in the Swamp Realm where giant mosquitoes, slugs, and a swamp beast were capturing drivers and guarding the portal. However, when a Realm is conquered, all obstacles and creatures will die out.
When at least 14 of the 30 Accelechargers are collected, they combine their energy and the Wheel of Power will reconfigure for the Ultimate Race. In this state, the realms of the corresponding Accelechargers are brought together and the drivers will have to race through each of them. The Wheel of Power will randomly go through each realm until they reach the Sphere: which is a portal leading directly to the Accelerons Homeworld. Drivers who compete in the Ultimate Race must utilize the lessons learnt from each Racing Realm in order to reach the end, and not rely upon the Accelechargers to win.
Racing Realms
Realms completed before the events of Acceleracers
- Fog Realm: A Racing Realm full of dangerous switchbacks with thick fog. It was completed prior to the events portrayed in AcceleRacers. The skill could be driving in the fog.
- Warped Realm: A Racing Realm where there are no laws of physics, not even gravity. It was completed prior to the events portrayed in AcceleRacers. The skill could be trying to stay on the track, or even being able to move.
- Monument Realm: A Racing Realm inside ancient ruins where drivers must decipher writing to finish the race. It was completed prior to the events portrayed in AcceleRacers. The skill could be Deciphering ancient writing.
Realms featured exclusively in the Card Game
- Canyon Realm: A Racing Realm that criss-crosses over a deep canyon with sheer drops. The skill for this realm could be landing jumps.
- Chrome Realm: A Racing Realm that has huge silver spheres and mirrors. The skill for this realm could be telling what is a reflection and what is not.
- Wind Realm: A Racing Realm with savage vortexes of wind as well as tornadoes, debris flying at supersonic speeds, and swaying tracks. The skill to pass is to keep your cool under high pressure and high winds.
- Solar Realm: A Racing Realm with solar flares and intense heat strong enough to melt your tires. The driving skill may be driving efficiently enough to stave of the heat.
- Labyrinth Realm: A Racing Realm with a tangle of twists and turns that is infested with Maze Minotaurs. The skill for this realm might be remembering your path when lost.
- Blizzard Realm: A Racing Realm with vicious snowstorms that will bury whole cars, zero visibility, fierce sleet, ice, and deep snow. The skill for this realm may be not losing control in an extreme blizzard.
- Cybergrid Realm: A Racing Realm with a supercharged track as well as a maze of 90 degree turns and electric countermeasures. The skill for this realm is perfecting 90 degree turns.
- Reactor Realm: A Racing Realm taking place in a nuclear power plant with patrolling sentries, constantly active machinery and ever encroaching toxic waste. The skill for this realm is trying to keep up with the rest of the pack, especially under hazardous conditions such as these.
- Desert Realm: A Racing Realm filled with quicksand, dangerous rock passages, sandstorms, and giant scorpions. The skill for this realm is driving in arid conditions.
- Micro Realm: A Racing Realm where all cars become toy size. The skill of the realm is to cope with the sudden power increase that comes with the cars scaling down.
Realms featured in the series
- Storm Realm: The Storm Realm is a Racing Realm with tracks that loop and curve around the sides of clouds, as if they were clinging to colossal mountainsides. The Storm Realm is an electrically charged world of flickering lightning and booming thunder. This realm tests a driver's ability to focus and avoid distraction.
- Swamp Realm: The Swamp Realm features a winding track that curves through and around gigantic jungle trees growing from a fetid swamp below. Giant worms, giant mosquitoes, and hungry creatures lurk in the shadows and are ready to take out the drivers. The track itself is alive and continuously growing, forcing drivers to constantly choose the best terrain at any given moment. The main skill tested in this realm is the ability of a driver to drive the racing line with the most grip.
- Cavern Realm: The dark and daunting Cavern Realm features sudden turns and stops, unexpected drops and dips, and sections of track that veer into total darkness as well as falling boulders and giant bats. The Accelerons designed the Cavern Realm to test a driver's ability to drive in the dark while avoiding obstacles. As such, stalactites and stalagmites appear throughout the course.
- Lava Realm: Huge flaming boulders, lava eruptions and magma geysers are just some of the dangers that drivers face in the Lava Realm. With flowing lava a constant threat, drivers will need to master tire management if they hope to stay off the sidelines and stay alive.
- Water Realm: The track in the Water Realm runs above, on, and below the surface of the ocean. Sections of track that are completely submerged run through translucent tubes. Periods of breaks prevent flooding, but allow cars, sea creatures, and some water to pass through. Ravenous sea creatures wait for unsuspecting drivers in the darkness. The Water Realm will test a driver's ability to avoid hydroplaning and spinning out.
- Metro Realm: The Metro Realm offers a vast night-time cityscape to explore, eerily deserted and dotted with neon signage and streetlights. The interconnecting streets of this bizarre metropolis will force a driver to master the skills of braking, cornering and driving through traffic. To help complete this realm a driver must remember balance increases traction.
- Cliffside Realm: Drivers will need to navigate hairpin turns while avoiding rockslides, falling rocks and large flying vultures if they hope to make it to the end of the Cliffside Realm. Mastering the art of drifting (which means taking tight turns while minimizing loss of speed) will be essential.
- Ice Realm: With a track made of ice that can crack and collapse at any moment, the Ice Realm presents a chilling challenge for any driver with it being on a glacier. Competitors will need to be good at negotiating slick surfaces if they want to make it to the finish line.
- Pipeline Realm: The Neon Pipeline Realm is a unique Racing Realm that features a track running inside and around the outside of a huge pipeline. Drivers will have to race at all angles (and even upside-down) on their way to a win. Mastering drafting (getting behind another car and using both car's aerodynamics to go faster) will take them one step closer to success.
- Junk Realm: The Junk Realm is a Racing Realm that will take drivers through a junkyard filled with scrap metal and rusty old cars. Piles of junk fall down on the track, threatening to crush drivers underneath. There's also problems with piles of debris on the road, electromagnetic lifters, compactors, wrecking balls, and a big metal fire-breathing dinosaur. The Accelerons designed this realm to test a driver's ability to hit the apex of a turn.
- Ruins Realm: The Ruins Realm is a Racing Realm with an atmosphere that evokes Tikal, Easter Island and Stonehenge. The Ruins Realm is peppered with colossal statues and stone buildings. With an ancient marble track that threatens to collapse at any time, 4-headed stone creature, and collapsing pillars, drivers must hone their skills if they want to win.
- Cosmic Realm: The Cosmic Realm is a Racing Realm that features a track composed of colorful planetary rings that lie suspended in space. Meteor showers and a neighboring black hole are just a few of the hazards that this realm contains. This realm is designed to test a driver's skill in high-speed control since the low-gravity environment requires the driver to produce as much down force as possible in order to avoid floating off the track.
Other
Trivia
- The Wheel of Power's realm symbols are different from the ones in World Race.
- The Racing Drones completed the Warped, Fog, and Monument Realms by the time of Ignition.
- There are 4 Realm symbols shown on the Wheel of Power that aren’t shown in the movies or card game. It is unknown if they are undiscovered, or have been discovered already, off-screen.
- According to the show bible, there was originally going to be a Forest Realm, but as development of the show progressed it was repurposed into the Swamp Realm. NOTE: this is second-hand information so it should not be assumed to be the exact truth. However, the fact that the Forest Inferno hazard card references the Forest Realm could be further evidence towards it being true.
- Going by Vert’s line in the Ultimate Race: “I've already been through some realms I haven’t even seen before!” It’s possible he is referring to the undiscovered realms, realms that were completed by the Racing Drones prior to the Teku and Metal Maniacs being recruited before the events of Ignition.
| Racing Realms |
|---|
| 1.0 Storm Realm - Swamp Realm - Cavern Realm - Lava Realm |
| 2.0 Water Realm - Metro Realm - Cliffside Realm - Ice Realm |
| 3.0 Neon Pipeline Realm - Junk Realm - Ruins Realm |
| 4.0 Cosmic Realm - The Ultimate Race - The Sphere |
| Other Fog Realm - Warped Realm - Monument Realm - Canyon Realm - Chrome Realm - Wind Realm - Solar Realm - Labyrinth Realm - Blizzard Realm - Cybergrid Realm - Reactor Realm - Micro Realm - Forest Realm - Unknown Symbols |