What it is
Underground is a phone app for street and track racing. You install it from the App Store, pick a handle, and from then on the handle is the only name anyone sees inside it. With it you can build a track by driving the route and dropping checkpoints, host a race on any track you can see, join races other people host, form a crew with a shared chat and a crew leaderboard, add friends by handle and chase per-track records.
Races can carry an entry fee. It leaves your bank when you join, the server holds it while the race runs, and the winner is paid the whole pot the moment the race ends. Leave the lobby, get kicked, or have the race cancelled and your fee comes straight back. Your bank statement only ever says "Transfer".
Tracks are marked legal or illegal when they are built. Today that decides which props can dress the route (barriers and banners on a legal track, flares on an illegal one) and the colour of a chip. Nothing in the app tells the police anything; what happens on the road is between you and the officer who saw it.
How to start
Open your phone, App Store, and get Underground. It is free. The first time you open it the app asks for a handle: three to sixteen lowercase letters, digits and underscores, unique, and changeable once a week. Nobody in the app will ever see your character's name, only this.
/race (also /races) opens the phone straight to the app. /racecreate starts the track builder without going through the app. There are no keys to learn outside the builder, and no shops, NPCs or fixed locations: a track starts wherever its author dropped the first checkpoint.
Racing needs a car you can drive, a bank balance that covers the fee, and a world dimension: you cannot build or race from inside an interior, and everyone in a race must be in the same dimension as the host when the countdown starts.
Step by step
- Install and pick a handle
App Store, Underground, Get. On first open, choose a handle. The tab bar along the bottom is Home, Tracks, Races, Crews and Profile; Friends and Leaderboards are reached from Home or Profile.
- Find a race
The Races tab lists open lobbies you are allowed to see: public races, races from your crews, and friends or invite-only races you were invited to. When a public or crew race opens, a chequered flag blip appears on your map at the start line for two minutes and the phone tells you who is hosting and the fee.
- Join and get ready
Tap a race, read the track (format, length, laps, class if the host set one) and the fee, and join. The fee leaves your bank now. Drive to the start blip, sit in the driver's seat of a car in the right class, and press "I am ready". The host can only start once every entrant in the lobby is ready.
- The countdown
When the host presses "Start countdown" anyone not sitting in a driver's seat, in the wrong class of car or in the wrong dimension is removed and refunded. Everyone else is teleported onto a two-column grid behind the first checkpoint, host on the front left, engines on, frozen. Ten seconds count down and GO releases the cars.
- Race
Follow the orange checkpoint and the GPS route drawn to it. The HUD shows your position, elapsed time, lap on circuits, the next checkpoint number, your last lap, your split against your own best run and your speed. The checkpoint after the next one is drawn faint white; the finish is green. Stay in the car you started in.
- Finish and get paid
A sprint ends at the last checkpoint. A circuit counts a lap each time you re-cross the first checkpoint and ends when you have done the lap count. Once someone finishes, everyone else has five minutes. The result card shows your position, total time, best lap and any records for twelve seconds, and the winner's bank receives the pot with a "Transfer" line.
Building a track
Start from Home, the Tracks tab or /racecreate. The phone closes, your waypoint is cleared (it comes back afterwards) and a hint strip appears.
Drive the route. In the driver's seat press E to drop a checkpoint where the car is, facing the way it is facing. A ghost cylinder follows the car so you can see the 24 m footprint before you drop. Checkpoints must be at least 25 m apart and a track holds between 3 and 60 of them. Backspace removes the last one, X cancels the whole build, and Enter with three or more finishes the route. You have thirty minutes per build.
The save modal shows the checkpoint count and length and asks for:
Choice | Options |
|---|---|
Name | 3 to 40 characters |
Format | Sprint (A to B) or Circuit (laps, finishing at checkpoint 1) |
Legality | Legal (barriers, banners and cones) or Illegal (cones and flares) |
Visibility | Public (anyone can host on it) or Private (you and every crew you belong to) |
After saving you can dress the track: press 1 to 4 to pick a prop kind, E to place it where you stand, up to 80 items, and Enter when you are done. Dressing is not in the world normally; it is spawned for each race in that race's dimension and removed afterwards. There is no editing a track later beyond deleting it and building again.
Hosting a race
From a track's detail page press Host. You choose:
Who can join: Public (announced to everyone with the app, up to 200 people), Crew (announced to one of your crews), Friends (only your accepted friends and anyone you invite), Invite only (only people you invite by handle) or Solo time trial.
Laps, 1 to 20, on circuits only. Sprints are always one.
Start: now, or in 15, 30, 60 or 120 minutes. A lobby that has not started thirty minutes after its scheduled time expires and refunds everyone.
Vehicle class, optional: Compacts, Sedans, SUVs, Coupes, Muscle, Sports classics, Sports, Super, Motorcycles, Off-road or Vans. The check is made at the start, not at join.
Entry fee, $0 to $250,000, whole dollars, bank only. The host pays it too.
A lobby holds up to sixteen racers. Invite people from the lobby screen or with /race invite <handle>; the chat version pops a thirty second Join or Decline prompt on their screen with the fee shown, and joining from it charges the fee like any other join. The host can kick people from the lobby (they are refunded) and cancel at any point up to GO with /race cancel or the Cancel button, which refunds everyone. /race leave takes you out of a lobby you joined and refunds you; if you are the host it cancels the race.
A solo time trial skips the lobby: you must already be driving, the fee is zero, the countdown starts at once, and the result sets records but never counts as a win or a podium.
Money, DNF and refunds
The pot is the fee times the number of people who paid and were not refunded. A four-car race at $2,000 pays $8,000 to the winner whether or not anyone else finishes. The winner is the finisher with the lowest total time. If nobody finishes, everyone who paid gets their own fee back.
You did not finish, and your fee stays in the pot, if:
Reason | What triggers it |
|---|---|
Out of the vehicle too long | Fifteen seconds out of the driver's seat of the car you started in. Changing car counts as being out |
You went down | You died during the race |
Left the race area | You changed dimension: an interior, an instance, a staff teleport |
Disconnected | You quit or changed character while racing |
Time is up | Still racing five minutes after the first finisher, or an hour after GO |
You are refunded, in full, when you leave a lobby, are kicked, the lobby expires, the host cancels (including by disconnecting), the server restarts with the race unfinished, or the race ends with no finisher. Every fee, refund and payout goes through your bank with the description "Transfer" and a Fleeca notification on your phone.
Crews and friends
A crew has a unique name (3 to 24 characters) and a two to four letter tag that shows beside your handle in races. You can be in up to five. The founder can make officers and members, kick, hand the crew to someone else or leave; officers can invite and kick members; every member can chat. The crew chat keeps the last 200 messages of up to 300 characters, pushes live to online members and sends a phone notification to the rest. A crew race is announced only to that crew, and private tracks are shared with your crew mates for as long as you are in the crew.
Crew wins: when a race with at least two starters ends with a finisher, the winner's crew gets a win, and the crew board ranks crews by wins.
Friends are added by handle; only the person asked can accept. Being friends matters for one thing: friends races are listed for you without an invite.
Leaderboards and records
Each track has a board of the top twenty: by best lap on circuits, by best run on sprints, ties going to whoever set it first. Your best lap is the fastest single lap you have ever driven on that track, from any race, finished or not. Your best run is your fastest finish and is only replaced by a faster finish at the same lap count, so a five-lap record is never overwritten by a one-lap dash. The splits saved with your best run are what the HUD's Split line compares against next time you race that track at that lap count: green and negative means you are ahead of yourself.
Your profile counts races, wins, podiums and DNFs. Wins and podiums are only counted in races where at least two people started.
Tips
Press "I am ready" only when you are actually in the driver's seat at the start. The host cannot start until everyone is ready, and anyone not driving at the start is removed.
Do not change cars, even to something better parked at the line. The server only accepts checkpoints from the car you were driving at GO.
Interiors end your race. If a route passes a garage or a shop you use, drive past it.
Set a vehicle class on public races. A $5,000 pot with Supers allowed becomes a Super race; a class keeps it honest.
Use the two-minute start blip. When a public race is announced, drive to the flag on the map before joining and you will be ready before the host is.
Read the split, not the field. Beating your own best run on a familiar track is what sets the leaderboard time that lasts.
Keep fees you can afford to lose to a faster driver. The winner takes all; there is no second prize.
Private tracks and crew races are the way to run a closed championship: only crew mates see the track, only the crew is announced, and the crew board counts the wins.
Related commands
/raceEveryoneOpen the Underground app or manage your current race
/racecreateEveryoneBuild a new race track by driving it
/phoneEveryoneOpen your phone.
Worked example
Handle night_owl has built a 4.6 km circuit called Vinewood Loop, fourteen checkpoints, legal, public. On Friday night she opens Underground, Tracks, Vinewood Loop, Host: Public, 3 laps, start in 15 minutes, class Sports, fee $2,000. Her bank shows "-$2,000.00 · Transfer" and the lobby opens with her in it.
Everyone with the app gets the notification: "night_owl is hosting Vinewood Loop. Fee $2,000. Start line is on your map." A chequered flag appears at the top of the hill above Vinewood for two minutes. slick_v and rev_head drive up in a Comet and an Elegy and join; the pot reads $6,000. kt_racing joins in a Sultan RS and the pot reads $8,000. Then a fifth driver arrives in a Zentorno, joins, and is told nothing until the start.
At the scheduled time night_owl presses "Start countdown". The Zentorno is a Super, not a Sports: its driver is kicked with "Your vehicle is not in the allowed class" and "$2,000 returned to your account". The other four are lifted onto the grid, night_owl front left, and frozen. Ten seconds, GO.
The HUD shows P1 to P4, Lap 1 of 3, CP 0 of 14 and a route to the first checkpoint. On lap two slick_v clips a lamp post, gets out to look at the damage, and forgets the rule: fifteen seconds later the card reads "Out of the vehicle too long. You did not finish." His $2,000 stays in the pot. rev_head crosses the line first in 3:31.006 and a five-minute clock starts for the rest. night_owl finishes second, kt_racing third with a minute to spare.
The result card holds for twelve seconds: P1 rev_head, Winnings $8,000, New best lap. rev_head's phone buzzes "+$8,000.00 · Transfer". The track leaderboard now shows his 1:07.215 at the top, night_owl's crew tag next to her second place, and slick_v with a DNF he will hear about in crew chat for a week.
Related guides
The phone for the App Store and phone basics
Mechanics and vehicles for tuning the car you race
Banking and finance for where the fees and pots go
Custody and the law for what a street race can cost you off the app