NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona
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| NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona | |
|---|---|
 PlayStation 2 cover art | |
| Developer(s) | Monster Games |
| Publisher(s) | Infogrames |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2 GameCube |
| Release | PlayStation 2 GameCube |
| Genre(s) | Sim racing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona is a racing simulator developed by Monster Games and published by Infogrames in November 2002 for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. It is the latest in the NASCAR Heat series[1] and the last of the NASCAR-licensed games to be published before EA won exclusive rights to the license.
Racing classes
This was one of the first video games that allowed a player to participate in racing series other than the Winston Cup Series. Those divisions are the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series (Dirt), Featherlite Modified Tour, Craftsman Truck Series, and Winston Cup Series.
- Dirt cars have low top speed, high handling, high braking, and average acceleration. These cars are known as "Street Stocks" in the dirt racing world and are well known for sliding though the turns.
- Modified cars have moderate top speed, average handling, average braking, but low acceleration. They are considered easy to wreck because of their open wheel design.
- Truck Series cars have high top speed, average acceleration, low handling, and moderate braking. They are considered as the "Beasts of NASCAR" since they are a new type of class introduced in the 90s.
- Winston Cup Series cars have very high top speed, low acceleration, moderate handling, and high braking. They are considered as the "Moonshine and Speed Demons" because they were one of the first to be introduced which made NASCAR special and because of the over 200 mph+ they can hit at Talladega Superspeedway.
Gameplay
In the Career mode, players have to start out in a Dirt racing series and work their way through the ranks of NASCAR to Winston Cup. In free race mode players can race in any four divisions that they please. While the game incorporates actual drivers, fantasy drivers are also used in every division to make up for drivers not featured in-game. The mechanisms for career mode were later adopted, albeit in a modified form (Featherlite Modified, Craftsman Truck, National (Busch), and Nextel Cup), into a new gameplay mode named "Fight to the Top" in the EA Sports video game NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup. To get to the next level of racing in NASCAR Dirt to Daytona, the player will have to win the points championship in a league to advance to the next series. For also each league, the parts get more expensive ranging from $3,000 to almost $2,000,000 in funds. Also, while in career mode, the player will have to sign up 3 employees for the Truck and Cup leagues. The different types are: Chassis Builder, Engine Tuner, and Pit Crew Chief. However the different parts are Engine, Suspension, Aero, and Exhaust which in return do not affect the employee attributes to the car only the cash inflow per race.
Horsepower/Engine upgrades
The engine upgrades of the cars range from $800 to at least $2,000,000. Each car though, have different horsepower ratings ranging from 240 hp to near 700 hp.
Dirt: Original - 240 hp Maxed - 300 hp
Modified: Original - 271 hp Maxed - 350 hp
Truck: Original - 532 hp Maxed - 592 hp
Cup: Original - 590 hp Maxed - 636 hp
Season
The season consists from 10 to 31 races. While in career mode, the player can race up to 60 [or more] races but not all of them.
Dirt Season: 10 races
Modified Season: 11 races
Truck Season: 14 races [now 20 races]
Winston Cup Season: 31 races [now 36 races]