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ABOUT & HISTORY
Thirty years. Nine horses. One finish line.
From a high school Visual Basic project to a browser-based pixel-art racetrack, the idea has always been simple: pick a horse and watch the action.
THE ORIGINAL
1996 — Make Them Race.
J.D.’s Racetrack began as my high school programming project in 1996. While learning BASIC in class, I decided to try something different and build my own game using Visual Basic.
Back in the days of bulky CRT monitors, 640 × 480 (roughly 480p) was about all the screen resolution I had to work with. Large 1080p and 4K displays were still a distant dream. I needed to squeeze a racetrack, horse selection, and race results onto that one screen. Looking back, I believe those limitations helped shape the nine-horse format, which would go on to become a defining feature of the game.
The horses were just colored numbers moving across the track, each with its own randomized speed. There were no animated horses or fancy graphics—just a simple wager and the excitement of seeing which number reached the finish line first.
REIMAGINED
2026 — Make It Exciting.
Thirty years later, I decided to bring J.D.’s Racetrack back to life. What started as a nostalgic look at my old Visual Basic project quickly turned into something much bigger: rebuilding the game for modern browsers while keeping the spirit of the original.
This time, I wanted more than nine horses simply moving toward a finish line. I wanted races with changing leaders, late surges, and come-from-behind victories. The challenge wasn’t just making the horses race anymore—it was making every race exciting to watch.
With the help of AI, plenty of experimentation, and a lot of playtesting, the original colored numbers became animated pixel-art horses, the simple wagering system grew into multiple betting options, and J.D.’s Racetrack was reimagined as BitDerby!
And for a little nostalgia, I intentionally kept a playable Classic View, bringing back the simple numbered horses that started it all.
A NOTE FROM THE CREATOR
Back at the starting gate
It’s funny how something you created in high school can find its way back into your life thirty years later. What started as a trip down memory lane turned into an opportunity to revisit an old idea and see just how far I could take it.
I never imagined that those nine colored numbers racing across a computer screen would someday become a game I could share with anyone through a web browser. Bringing BitDerby! to life has been as much fun as creating the original, and perhaps even more rewarding.
At its heart, the game is still about picking your horse, placing a wager, and cheering it on all the way to the finish line. Whether you’re here for the nostalgia or discovering BitDerby! for the first time, I hope you have as much fun playing it as I’ve had bringing it back.
Thanks for spending a little time at the track.
— John Dimitropoulos
← Back to RacingCreated by John Dimitropoulos · Original: 1996 · BitDerby!: 2026