Posted 25 Aug 2025 at 11:26 by Dean Jones
As Infogrames are mainly known for cheaper, budget games, I was quite surprised as to the amount of detail in this NASCAR game. It starts off with some kind of news presenter explaining that NASCAR is far more than the high level events that are the main part of NASCAR people know about, but rather loads and loads of smaller leagues. This game focuses on some of those as you start from almost nothing and slowly build your way up through multiple seasons.
At the start, you’re not expected to win. You don’t really have a good enough car to do so, so your objective is just making the final round, attracting sponsors to pay for better parts to perform better in later races. There’s a lot to tinker with and thankfully the visual stuff is free to modify. You start off quite slow on dirt tracks, but going outside the career mode does let you try the different types, with trucks, modded cars and finally full on NASCAR races.
The more high-end races do have a great sense of speed, and it quite impressively features the full 43 cars from real life NASCAR races, with it looking good and running smoothly as well. While it’s not something I’m personally interested in, I can see the amount of effort and detail there is in this “rags to riches” career-based game.
Fun
Ultimately, Dirt to Daytona is a sound NASCAR simulation with one of the most robust career modes of any driving game to date. Its relative lack of licensed drivers and overly forgiving damage model might put off some of the more hard-core followers of this sport, but it shouldn’t. Its career mode more than makes up for any perceived shortcomings by offering endless hours of play. Even if you bought last year’s NASCAR Heat 2002, you owe it to yourself to check out Dirt to Daytona.
Amer Ajami, GameSpot
Remake or remaster?
I’m not sure what current NASCAR games are like, but if they don’t have a career mode like this, they should.
Official Ways to get the game
There’s no official way to get NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona.