NASCAR 2006 Feature Preview

If anything, EA Sports hasn't sat idle with the NASCAR license. In addition to this year's NASCAR SimRacing, the first NASCAR simulation-style racer for the PC, the last few years have seen a string of well-received console stock car racing games from the publisher, including the NASCAR Thunder series, which subsequently became the NASCAR: Chase for the Cup franchise. Each entry in this series has been focused on and designed around a theme that guided the player's approach to the game. In last year's NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup, for example, you took control of a single driver and attempted to race him to the top of the championship heap while also controlling his "personality." If you drove cleanly and played well with others, you attracted fans who thought of you as a hero; if you tended to ram first and ask questions later, you quickly gained villain status.

This year, with NASCAR Chase for the Cup 2006, the theme seems to revolve around the notion of teamwork, specifically developing and managing a successful racing team while fending off attacks from your rivals both on and off the track. As any NASCAR fan will tell you, there's more to collecting checkered flags than a reliable car and a tough-as-nails driver. The seven guys who come over the wall during pit stops, not to mention the crew chief, spotter, and your teammate drivers, all play a role in your success, or lack thereof, when burning asphalt.

The slickest implementation of this team-centric approach in NASCAR 2006 is the interactive crew chief, which is essentially a shortcut to team commands that will give you a previously unseen level of control over how you approach a race. Commands in the interactive crew chief will be directly tied to the controller, so you can execute a number of team-related tactics while turning laps. These tactics include notifying your team (including your counterpart drivers) that you intend to pit on the current lap, as well as asking a teammate to hold his position or move into a position to draft for you, which will potentially allow you to move up in the field.

The coolest team maneuver we saw, however, was the ability to switch cars midrace in order to improve your or your teammate's position in a race. Say you've managed to gain the lead at Daytona, but your teammate is lagging behind at the back of the pack. Using the crew chief controls, you can switch control to the back marker and attempt to work your way up the field (as your teammate) in the hopes of grabbing more valuable Nextel Cup championship points. This feature is especially useful should you happen to be involved in an accident. If you're currently controlled car runs into an unrecoverable wreck, you can switch control to the other car on your team and finish out the race. Finally, it's worth noting that just because you are one member of a team doesn't mean there won't be competition. For example, if you manage to work well with your teammate, you'll notice that he'll be more receptive to your drafting requests. If you screw him out of a win--or worse, run him into a wall--you should expect reciprocation at some point. Numerous skill challenges in the game will reward you for managing to finish both cars in the top five or top 10 of a race, for instance, which will test not only your aptitude at trading paint, but also your skill at managing multiple cars in a race.

Strong teamwork will have its benefits off the track as well, as you'll be able to leverage team winnings in the garage. You can pour your money that you've earned from race finishes back into research and development for your car, with the ultimate goal of building a powerful and highly lucrative championship team.

Just as in last year's game, NASCAR 2006 will feature racing series like the Featherlite Modified, Busch, Craftsman Truck, and, of course, the Nextel Cup. Yet, the look of this year's game has received an upgrade in the form of a slightly different camera angle in the chase-cam view. While not dramatically different from last year's version, the slightly pulled-back angle is designed to give you a better look at the field ahead of you (which makes spotting your teammate much easier than before). Of course you can expect to see other graphical improvements, such as a bigger variety of grass textures and asphalt types.

Currently scheduled for release later this year, NASCAR 2006 still has plenty of development time ahead of it, so it's unclear exactly how the storyline will play out between races or what noticeable upgrades the driving model will employ. We'll have these answers in the coming months as our coverage of the game continues.