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ORIGINAL: SlickRick

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ORIGINAL: Steam888

Had a chance to play it a couple days this weekend and from what I am hearing others say (and myself), it is one of the better versions...

Random thoughts:
You build your car and reputation by completing various driver challenges and when you complete all those around a particular driver challenge, it will give you a scenario to complete against that driver.  Both give you points and reputation points.  The points can be spent on craftsman, nationwide or sprint car attributes.  Engine, chasis, aerodynamics and, uh, toughness of your car.  Its called something else but I can't recall what it is called.  This is all pretty fun but you need to build your repuation in trucks or nationwide series before cup spring unlocks in career mode. 
The spotter is much better and will tell you downlow even when a car has a run on you downlow but isn't quite there yet.  I like this as it is err'ing on the side of caution.  (As opposed to 1/2 the time he didn't say a thing when a car was there in '08.)

The cars do not jam up into the back of you UNLESS you have a car that is really slow in turns.  They still do everything they can to get around you (or you go high and they will go low) but it isn't a problem like last year, its inherent in the sport if you jack your tire pressure up to be fast on the straights.

The "Own the Track" feature is fun as it takes your friends list and, well, if someone is faster on a track, they own it.  You can see all your friends stats on that track in head to head fashion with your own.  You can do race now races with sprint cars to "own the track" if you haven't unlocked the sprint series in career mode fyi.

I think there might be a "slippery spot" on bristol but am not sure.  The Atlanta one is definitely gone as it was right where my line always was and still is and I have driven through it numerous times today.  I was in the lead at Bristol lapping some slow cars and just spun. 

I am interested to see how the cars run online once I have them pimped.  Dan and I played last night and you can definitely tell the diference between a car with points spent on it and those not.  Its definitely a solo game at first till you get your points added. 

I fddled withe the downloadable paint shop and it comes out pretty good.  I'm tooling around in a Buckeye car which is kind of fun.  

Its definitely a game where someone not real "experienced" could juimp in and compete better.  I run with wheel/cockpit view/pro/assists off except low traction and its definitely more my focus in this game getting around cars, being patient as opposed to just trying to keep it on the track.

Here's a question for you steam/Dan, in regards to 'adding points'.  Is this kinda like Tiger, where a better built cag is going to play much better than a noob cag?  Is there any way to even the field if one has a bunch of points added versus one that has very little to none?  I wouldn't mind doing the offline part of the game to build points because that's an enjoyable experience.  I was just curious if it was required.

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ORIGINAL: ER1CKSON

#4....that's a good number for the Buckeyes. 

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ORIGINAL: SlickRick

Of course it doesn't help that I'm sitting here watching the Nationwide series at the Milwaukee Mile.

(a track I own by the way.... )

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ORIGINAL: SlickRick

I defitnitely need to get my performace points up.  I can't stand watching my human competitors driving away into the distance.