Backwards

Backwards (oftentimes shortened to B) is a TrackMania Nations Forever map style, as well as a game mode taking advantage of the game's tomfool mechanics to create "the most original map style ever imagined". The players' goal is to complete tracks specifically built to be driven backwards (gear stick on "R").

History
Backwards driving was invented quite late compared to other game modes due to its non-existent use in regular maps. The first intended backwards map ever published to TrackMania Exchange is "Unnamed1backwards" by the now legendary builder aronfisken.

Specifications
Since driving backwards is way slower than forwards, the mappers had to come up with convoluted ideas to make driving backwards faster, such as using the booster bug, using the DirtSlide (patched since 20.7a) or simply by threatening the player by displaying mean messages to forwards drivers.

While driving backwards, the car does not shift gears, and instead shifts "raegs", a variant of gears specific to backwards driving. The first player to ever enter 1st raeg, and thus drive backwards, was the aforementioned builder aronfisken. While forwards driving grants accession to 6 gears, backwards driving lets you shift up to the 9th raeg (400-440 speeds). Further raegs may exist but are yet to be discovered.

Online
Regular servers are not enclined to host games on backwards maps, mainly due to the extreme difficulty of entering the 1st raeg. To successfully play backwards maps online one would have to boot the game in version 20.8b (to be able to perform DirtSlides) and then join the only backwards server still running: NASCAR WORLD.