A little bit of context goes a long way. Just like Drive to Survive brought thousands of new fans to Formula 1, NASCAR: Full Speed has done a good job of selling the American-based racing series to places that think Daytona is just an old Sega game and that NASCAR drivers only know how to turn left. NASCAR 25 has a whole new audience to court then, and as the best (and admittedly only) place to properly embody drivers like Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney, this could be NASCAR’s breakout year.
The Career mode is framed in moving style by Dale Earnhardt Junior’s journey from a promising rookie to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and it certainly sets the right tone for a game that’s designed to take you to sporting glory. Alongside the on-track action, vehicle tuning, and back-office tinkering, there’s a series of Dale JR Download podcast shows that make the experience feel thoroughly authentic, and bring you right into the thick of the world of NASCAR.
Creating a character is as laughably short as inputting a name, but you’ll be glad to discover that there’s a whole suite of much more important customisation options beyond that, letting you choose your car and team logo, your racing number, and then dig right into the visual look of your car, helmet and race suit. It’s easy and intuitive, and while you might be able to do more with various other racing games, I appreciated the straightforward batch of controls, and you unlock more designs as you progress.
The greatest shade thrown at NASCAR by racing fans around the world is that there’s no art to going round and round in a circle. NASCAR 25 shows that not only are they utterly wrong, but you need to find a place of zen and calm to be in with a hope of taking home a trophy. NASCAR is about driving on the absolute knife-edge of speed, holding your racing line, staying out of trouble, and doing so consistently, lap after lap. There isn’t anything easy in that, and frankly, I found it utterly mesmerising. Also, some of the tracks do actually have corners, with races at COTA, Sonoma, Watkins Glen and some street circuits as well, depending on the championship.
Somehow, the fact that your input has to be so precise, so smooth, and so controlled, makes your heart thump with the force of a punctured tyre. While Days of Thunder famously said that rubbing is racing, you’re ideally going to work your way through the pack without too much friction, finding yourself let loose by the minute mistakes made by other drivers. Honestly, it’s about the most edge-of-the-seat racing experience I’ve had in, well, forever. There’s no rewind, only a restart, and the smallest mistake can be the difference between the top 5 and 35th. It feels excellent.
Completing events sees you earning Rep. That’s not just based on where you finished the race, but also hitting your target in practice and qualifying, your lap speed, leading a race, and whether you raced clean. That last one is perhaps the hardest one to earn – there’s bound to be at least a little jostling in the pack – but it gives you other things to target beyond that elusive first place, and it can lead to better opportunities with sponsors, and the opportunity to earn more money.
There’s another reason to keep things clean, as each part of your car carries a Performance Rating. If you damage them, it’ll affect the overall performance of your vehicle, making it much tougher to perform well on race day. You’ll also get a social media blast from your opponents if they feel like you weren’t exactly trying not to run into them, and some of these definitely raised a few wry smiles along the way.
The pace of NASCAR 25’s Career mode might also raise a few more smiles, as it has options that allow it to be punchier and faster than you’d expect from the notoriously long-winded category. At a mere 7% race length, Practice, Qualifying and the race itself might see you complete as few as 5 to 10 laps in total, and then the back office repairs and PR choices tend to be fairly straightforward and binary. Repair decisions do become slightly tougher later on as you balance resources and cash, but the admin definitely takes a back seat to the on-track action.
Fans of NASCAR will be glad to know that you can race each race to its full length, and one of NASCAR 25’s greatest strengths is its adjustability. You can opt for a much lighter sim experience, dialling down the length, difficulty and damage, or you can move all the sliders to the right and make things as realistic and challenging as possible. What shines throughout is the handling model, which feels absolutely tuned in. Playing with controller is certainly an easier experience, but if you want the closest thing to being on track yourself, grab your steering wheel and check out just how good NASCAR 25 feels.
As you progress through Career mode, you move up through the different race categories, and you can participate in the Craftsmen Truck series at the same time, with races happening through the same weekend, maximising your time on track, which, depending on where you are could be a blessing or a curse. Your team changes and evolves as you progress too, and you can fire and hire new staff in each crucial role, giving you a boost when it comes to repairs, or helping you to gain more Rep. You may find yourself becoming strangely attached to them, and I felt a few twinges of guilt as I sacked a staff member that had been with me for a while.
While the Career mode is likely the main draw, you’ve got the option of Quick Race, Championship and 40-player online multiplayer to sink your teeth into as well. The multiplayer is often as chaotic as you’d expect, but if you hit upon the Goldilocks of lobbies, it’s a great experience, with reliably smooth performance and connection. Through these modes, there’s also a full roster of racers, from Cup Series stars like Byron, Hill and Reddick through to up and coming drivers like Brenden Queen and Andres Perez. The whole thing feels thoroughly authentic.
While this might be the premier rendition of the racing category, there’s a few elements that occasionally make it feel like slightly more of a budget release than you might be expecting. Some visual elements of the UI are very basic, and while there’s customisation, your character doesn’t even get the option of a placeholder image, or an actual character model. The car upgrade system also doesn’t extend very far beyond the fact that more expensive parts are better, which is a shame, and definitely loses out on an injection of depth into your downtime between races.