DRAFTING:

I decided to add some AI to the track to do some drafting. The lap-times without a drafting partner were pretty high in comparison to speeds at this year's race, which told me that with the draft, speeds would be much higher. You are as slow as a turtle without any drafting help so you better get a drafting partner. The tail end of the draft is pretty long, roughly three or so seconds back. You can still get a whiff of the draft around four seconds especially if a train has passed you and you can feel your own car gain speed. NR4 must be modeling this year's aero package because you can close on the cars in front very quickly in the draft.

As I got up to speed and caught up to several cars in a draft, I noticed how fast my car gained on them as I drew closer. Once I reached the AI's back bumper, I backed off the throttle to give some distance between the cars, which I had to do a lot. When I decided to bump the AI, it seemed to either move off to the right or left and I thought I did hit the AI square. This told me that the sweet spot of the rear bumper was really small which isn't correct. I also didn't like the actions of the AI car when I bumped him as the AI's car squatted and then moved forward. The bumped car should stay either level or raise somewhat and not sink when I hit the bumper. I also noticed that when I began to bump draft my car would slow down which isn't correct as when you hit the car in front, the car should go forward with you along with it. Not slow and then catch up. Something is amiss here with the draft. I'll talk about the AI later in the review.

Racing side-by-side in the draft can be quite a chore. If you are in the inside and there is a car on your outside be prepared to have a handful as the air is taken off your rear spoiler which usually results in a loose condition and you might find yourself chasing the car up the track.

Now if you are on the outside with no other cars in front of you, your car seems to tighten up a tad going into the turn. Also, regardless of which groove you run, if you follow too close, aero push is highly evident. So this told me to either setup the car for this type of reaction or give some room between you and the car in front.

Trap speeds in the draft can be over 200MPH, which doesn't follow along the lines of the current speeds being achieved.

After racing with the AI for a while, I decided to pull into the pits and as I went down pitroad, my spotter kept telling me the RPM to stay at in second gear. As I approached my pitbox, the pit sign came down. Man, that was cool! As I stopped my car at the pit sign the animated pit crew began working on my car. Once the pit work was completed, I headed back to the track. As soon as I was told I was clear to romp on the gas, I did and proceeded to stay on the apron until I hit the backstretch and then I decided to come to a complete stop. I wanted to try something. Being in the pitbox, I could barely spin the tires so I decided to try again at the backstretch and I was in for a shocker, as the rear tires broke loose pretty hard! This doesn't make sense now does it? This needs to be fixed by letting the car spin the tires hard from a dead stop regardless where I am on the track.

Super Speedway Driving

I went to Atlanta with realistic weather and loaded up the fast setup. I jumped into the cockpit and nailed the gas and the car responded by looping the car. Whoa, we have power, Scotty! I restarted again and this time slowly getting back on the throttle. As the engine neared its peak torque the rear tires began to haze then started to loose traction. So I short-shifted into second-gear and headed to the track. I waited for my trusty spotter to tell me to merge - makes good racing habits for online racing! - And then I did.

As the 750hp pulled the car around the track, I felt the sensations at the wheel as the wheel began to rock back and forth. So I decided to get a firm grip on the wheel and started to manhandle the car. Going into the turns, the setup had the feel that I liked in that the car wanted to go into the turn so that I could use to the gas to moderate the rate of the car going down into the turns, which kept the suspension loaded. Had I driven the car like I did with the past NR genre, I would have certainly looped the car!

Around the fifth lap or so, the characteristics of the car began to change as the car seem to be going a bit tight from entry to the middle. I like that and I see that they fixed their tire algorithm to get this done. Thank you Papyrus & Co.! By lap twenty, the car was really a burden to drive as it was getting tighter and tighter. My driving line and style (slowed down earlier and went smoother) had to change. So I thought this setup was great for a short haul by the way I drove it. The car started to fall off and it wasn't acceptable to me. But I love the tire wear rate as the laptimes showed it. Gone are the days of running qualifying speeds by half tank as this is realism as its finest!

Speedways less than 1.5mile

I headed to the Rock for some semi-short track racing. Again, I loaded up the fast setup. The weather was somewhat cold from I what I recall. I think it was in the 30s and that is cold for Rockingham! As I drove onto the track, I noticed something different with the cockpit view as it reminded me of a game I once played. Viewing the track from the cockpit was like NASCAR Revolution as you couldn't tell that the track had any banking. Don't use your past brake and gas points as the view drastically changes things.

As the laps added up, I decided to see what the speed was in reference to the laptimes I was using and I was shocked the speeds were exactly like their real life counterparts. So going with the realistic race speeds, I wanted to try out the qualifying engine just to see how much that engine is really worth. After doing several attempts, I will say this qualifying engine was at least three tenths or more! Heck, don't be shocked to knock more then a half a second off when comparing to the race engine. I wonder whose engine model they used?

Short Tracks

I have been really looking forward in driving at the Martinsville with the new engine since not only the physics has gotten my curiosity but the engine power. When I was driving at the track I noticed several things: the brakes need several laps to get up to temperature in order to prevent them from locking up, tires also take several laps to get up to their operating temperatures and I might add the default tire pressure is low - that's realism! - there's a lot of power under the hood, and finally, turn 4 has a bump that loves to unload the rear tires! You have to be smooth with the gas and steering input. I ran a lot of low 20s with a tweaked fast setup. Don't forget to avoid the curbs! If you plan on using force feedback expect the wheel to bite!

Road Courses

I went to both road courses in the game: Sears, then followed by Watkins Glen. Driving at Sears was a bit awkward as turn 1a was a bit more acute than I was accustomed in driving because I had to get prepared for the turn a bit earlier. Is that turn correctly modeled? The default fast setup fit my driving almost perfectly. I finally started getting the hang of the track after a couple of days but it's no Sunday drive!

Going to the Glen was pretty exciting and I loved the newly redesigned inner loop. Turn 10 is a pain for me for some unknown reason. Believe it or not it actually took me longer to get use to this track than Sears!

I did find out several things at these tracks and they were, being very smooth with your footwork and not using the curbs to catapult you into the cheap seats. J The chassis' are very stiff. The sandpits really slow you down and are to be avoided. The transitions of the hills and bumps can wreak havoc on your laptimes, and Goodyear is going to love your tire bill.

I really think if you can produce decent lap-times at these two road courses, your confidence will surely build and more than likely you will do very well at the other tracks. Why? If you can handle turning left/right and braking and accelerating smoothly, you will pretty much figure out how to drive the game! Nice tip isn't it? J

All in all, the physics are top notch and could be thought of as one the most realistic physics engine to ever model a stockcar. But it does have its shortcomings; the flips at short tracks can be a common occurrence. The rapid raise in RPM is too fast - no mass. Locking up the brakes can cause you to blow a tire a bit too quickly. Being involved in an accident or your car spinning out with your brake pedal smashed to slow your car down, it seems that this event would blow your tires faster but it doesn't as the time it takes to slow the car down seems longer. Getting back up to speed after a spin, accident, or locking up the brakes can be quite a chore as the car keeps doing doughnuts. The remedy was to start in third gear. I guess the tires heated up too much and I did check the wear indicator that showed me that the tire was only in the yellow. Having a very stiff car and in a spin, viewing from the cockpit, it seemed as though the car had blown shocks as the weight was exaggerated from side to side. The draft needs a bit more tweaking and wall riding needs to be stopped as you can run some very fast laptimes against the wall! The learning curve is quite steep for beginners; I suggest that they start either in arcade mode or in simulation mode with some aids enabled.

When you try to save your car in a spin, your success rate will be really low. I don't think saving a car from a loose condition in a slow spin is that hard. Something doesn't seem right, most of the time in order for you to save the car, you had to turn it with the tail end of the car thus making the car loop. What's interesting is that when doing this and mashing the brake pedal the seemed to straighten out completely. I think the yaw control is canned.

Lastly, the physics seem to lack some consistency as with one session while you work on our setup and runs fine and on the next, like junk. And yes, the weather was the same as was the driving. This can cause a great deal of frustration when trying to work in setup for either qualifying or for the race.

On a plus side, the physics allows for 6-degrees of freedom, you have ample power when needed, tire wear and laptimes are realistic at most tracks, weather plays an important role, sprinters are no more as real racers reside, and optimum tire temperatures vary from track to track.


DAMAGE MODEL:

NR4 damage can be thought as almost realistic but most of the time too forgiving. For instance, I hit the wall pretty hard, I expect my toe (an alignment of the front tires) to be shot and in the game it's not damaged. I think there are too many chances in order for the car to lose it's handling or speed and I am just talking about little bumps to the aero and such. They (Papyrus) need to patch this area and give penalties when these incidents happen. You can lose a gear; hurt the engine (sound marvelous!), etc. Flying debris can be seen when enabled. (I love this feature.) I don't know if liquids are present at the track but I recall an accident at the Rock in turn 4, and as I drove into turn 3, my car just looped around on me even though I hadn't touched the brakes.