NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona

Vanquish the Weekly Racing competition to qualify for the Featherlite Modified division. With a bit more money and a smoother ride, the next goal is the Craftsman Truck series. Finally, you'll be able to take on NASCAR's most prestigious riders in hopes of nabbing the Winston Cup Championship.

Garageland

NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona has more than 100 different parts. There's more to racing than hardware, though, so once you qualify for the Truck series you'll need to carefully select your crew. As any NASCAR fan knows, tuning your ride is half the challenge and so even on the humble Weekly Racing tracks you can always adjust your weight, shocks, springs, tires, camber, gears, sway bars and more.

There are seven dirt, eight Modified, 13 Truck and 20 different Cup tracks. The Modified, Truck and Cup circuits share many tracks, but you still have an impressive total of 31. All the big-name drivers are here, too, including Jeff Gordon.

By building up points -- something you can do without venturing into Career mode -- you can unlock a fistful of wacky codes, including Monster Cars, Horn Mortar and something called Oh Dear. Oh, dear.

The impressive physics model capably handles four very different classes of vehicles and surfaces ranging from freshly plowed dirt to smooth asphalt. You'll get entirely different feelings slogging around a tiny dirt track and flooring it before 100,000 adoring fans at Daytona.

Easing into the Driver's Seat

Infogrames reduces the frustration factor for new players with optional driving aids like automatic transmissions and AI-assisted braking and stability. For more precision, you can choose analog braking and throttle. If you find yourself overcompensating on curves, try reducing steering sensitivity.

NBC and TNT announcer Allen Bestwick introduces the game and various modes. In Pro Trainer mode, you'll listen to the videotaped advice of seven famous drivers. Sterling Martin, Rusty Wallace and others will offer highly detailed tips on running specific tracks, then race you in a ghost car.

The graphics are more than adequate for a fast-paced game like this, but NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona betrays its pokey PS2 roots with pop-in, spotty anti-aliasing and a pallid palette. For a sharper and clearer image, select the Progressive Scan option when playing on a TV set that supports that feature.

In multiplayer mode, as many as four pals can trade paint on any of the tracks.

Finish Line

The Career mode alone merits NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona a serious look-see by motor-sports fans. Carefully calibrated physics make each of the four types of vehicles a unique challenge. The graphics could be better, but the videotaped tips from famous drivers are a nice bonus.