America's Best Boardgame Has 12 Badass Mini Cars and an Infinite Road to Race Them On

Just think about it: according to statistics published for the year 2022, the global market was valued at a staggering $8 billion, with a very large chunk of that, $1.15 billion, reserved for the United States alone.

And yet by 2019 the nation didn't have a proper way of recognizing the best products in the industry. That year things changed with the creation of a competition that is presently known as the American Tabletop Awards.

The way things work is pretty simple: each year, a panel of industry experts comb through dozens of games, selecting just 20 of them to enter the final judging process. Of them only four will win recognition in one of the following four categories: Early Gamers (games for kids aged 12 and under), Casual Games, Strategy Games, and Complex Games.

We're talking about the American Tabletop Awards here on autoevolution because this year's winner in the Strategy Games category is a… racing game. One that has promised for decades a lot of fun racing miniature vehicles (including helicopters) on an infinite road board, all while trying to destroy your opponents in a post-apocalyptic setting.

The game is called Thunder Road: Vendetta, and it is a product of a company called Restoration Games. It is more or less a reskin of a game simply called Thunder Road, which was released for the first time in 1986.

The game is technically meant for up to four players, all of them preferably over ten years of age. For up to 60 minutes, these players take turns rolling dice and moving their miniature cars across the board.

I mentioned earlier that the game won the best Strategy category, and you simply can't have that in a simple racing game, now can you? Well, Thunder Road is a bit more complex than that: the road has obstacles and hazards, you can choose to slam into an opponent, or even shoot at it with imagined weaponry. All in the hope you'll reach the finish line first, or be the only one left standing.

A full video description of how America's best strategy boardgame for 2024 is supposed to work can be found below. Additionally, I've attached a PDF with all the rules of the boardgame, which you'll also find below this text.

What you won't find pretty much anywhere is the game itsel in its full configuration. Restoration Games lists the Vendetta Maximum Chrome Edition – the one with all four available expansions – as being sold out for the moment. The company promises a reprint, and it'll probably sell the new products for the same sum as before: $160.

If you can't wait for the fully loaded game, you can opt for the base version, which can still be had on the official website for $60, or with seven percent off on Amazon.