It’s an off-day today so we’re trying to set up a car to win the NASCAR Series in GT5. There are several very descriptive posts on the different game sites but the one thing that we find most helpful is the practice track.

If you’re racing the NASCAR Series, you can win or place near the top in every race except the last one, the Daytona track. Why? We’re not sure but maybe the AI (Artificial Intelligence) figures if you haven’t won by now, it will make it tough to win there at Daytona. What’s the secret? Well, we’ve found that running practice laps helps tremendously.

In one of the earlier races, the Lamborghini race on the Rome Circuit, we had a tough time skidding out on the sharp right hander near the start. The car we used was slippery as an eel but very powerful, over 800 horsepower. Unless we slowed down almost to a stop, we’d lose control and finish dead last. We decided to run some practice laps, going fast without the adrenaline that you get when you’re racing other cars. That worked perfectly. We were able to win in an excellent time, way ahead of the pack.

The secret to the NASCAR Series seems to be part tuning and part simply not hitting the wall. Daytona is set up in a circle, more or less, and the corners aren’t sharp at all. If you have your ground effects set up correctly, you should be able to  go full throttle around the track with no braking at all. That alone will get you into the pack if your other settings are fine. However, the one thing that will surely make you finish way behind the pack is…hitting the wall. Keep your eye on the guys behind you when you hit the wall. They jump ahead almost instantly. This happens in the other races too but it’s very obvious here at Daytona. Additionally, once you hit the wall it’s very difficult to pull off of it.

The best racing line is to be close to the wall on the straights, of course. Different sites tell you to stick to the yellow line so you won’t get bumped by other drivers but the yellow line isn’t anywhere near the best racing line. This isn’t important at all on other tracks but it’s vitally important at Daytona in this particular race. The AI is completely different here so don’t assume that lots of horsepower will win the day. Just stay off the wall and you’ll finish higher than last.

Practice, practice and practice some more. We like the view with no car showing but that makes it a bit tough to know exactly where the wall is. Practice with the different views, even the one of the whole car, to find out which one allows you to stay close to, but not on, the wall. No matter how careful you are, you will probably drift close to the wall. If you can learn to avoid hitting it, you’ll be able to maintain your speed. If you find yourself drifting towards the wall on the corners, try hitting your brakes while keeping your accelerator full on. Your revs will stay up but you’ll lose just a bit of speed, hopefully enough to avoid the wall which would slow you down even more.

Winning the first three races is easy, just keep your ground effects lowered to the bottom on Indy and the High Speed Ring and drive to the start in the second race and stay there. Make sure you are dead straight before you accelerate, specially at the start until your SOFT tires heat up. Make sure you’re using soft racing tires in all races. Maybe not the last one, now that we think of it. We’ll try it with hard racing to see if there is a difference. Daytona is a 10 lap race and the hard tires might give a bit of an advantage in straight speed. We’ll check and get back to you on this.

Good luck! We love GT5 here at Computers Made Simple.

Thanks for reading!