What is the name of the secret penguin character in Crash Team Racing?

The secret penguin character in Crash Team Racing is Penta Penguin. Unlike the eight racers available at the start, Penta is a hidden unlockable character accessed through a cheat code rather than normal Adventure Mode progression.

Penta’s origin is one of the series’ more unusual pieces of trivia. The character first appeared in a Japanese Crash Bandicoot manga adaptation before being included in Crash Team Racing. In the original PlayStation game, Penta can be selected after entering the appropriate controller sequence at the title screen, making the penguin a memorable secret for players who experimented with cheats.

Penta Penguin is easy to mix up with Polar, the small polar bear who appears in Crash Bandicoot 2 and also becomes a racer in CTR. Fake Crash is another hidden-looking character, but he is a distinct bandicoot character rather than a penguin. Penta also returned in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, where the classic cheat-code method was preserved as an intentional reference to the original.