This is a game for dirt racing fans, no doubt.
In the interest of full disclosure I've worked on a lot of dirt track racing games in the past as a producer and I worked on this game too. I appreciate it when a Gamespot reviewer clarifies the audience for a game upfront. I commend Ryan for his honesty in that regard. If you're not a dirt track racing fan to start with then your obvious not going to pick up this game. Apparently there aren't any serious dirt track fans on the Gamespot review staff in San Francisco, and that's cool. To me it's like deer hunting, you're not going to find a lot of reviewers in major cities clamoring to review a hunting game either but they certainly do sell don't they? If they were true hunters they'd be living where you can hunt. If you race on dirt tracks you live near where you can race. Perhaps these are the kind of games that a free lance reviewer that likes dirt racing should review, perhaps that's another bias altogether, but in the end I think declaring a games slant is always appreciated and in that regard Gamespot does a good job here.
My only real criticism of the review is that it didn't really give me a sense of how this game was different then the preceding sprint cars games (both PC and PS2). As a team Big Ant and THQ spent a lot of time looking at how we could improve the successful World of Outlaws Sprint Cars game. As a fan of the sport I'd be interested in knowing if it's worth playing this new game or just dusting off an old copy of World of Outlaws. To that I would (of course) answer that we've added a lot of new features like drafting, real-time track deformation, deeper career mode, owner mode, the ability to compare your best times against others on the Internet in Time Trial mode, and a host of visual environment improvements. I'd say it's a great improvement over the game released in 2002.
If you've been to a race or two, have a friend who races or maybe race yourself this is the right game for you. If you're a casual fan of racing then you'll certainly want to give it a try. If you've never played a racing game before you're likely not reading this anyway.