“If you goin’ hard enough left, you’ll find yourself turnin’ right.” Right, now I’ve expended my entire knowledge of NASCAR (via Disney’s Cars) in the first line, I’ve set the tone. Yes, outside of the Midwest and South, for the most part, NASCAR has yet to penetrate common viewership. The only other piece of knowledge I have is the “Brickyard 400,” thanks to F1’s stint in Indianapolis, along with 2007, ’10, and ’12 Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti. I might upset some hyper fans of the racing series with this review. To many, it is the Jeff Dunham “joke” of being just a bunch of left turns, and another left turn.

As a race series, it is hard to watch without impending boredom kicking in, much like baseball. After hours and hours of watching practically nothing happening, you switch over to the paint drying channel or Cricket and you feel like you’re a sniffer dog in a crack den. Driving it, as it turns out, isn’t that much more exciting either. Playing the latest in the NASCAR Heat series these last few days has been my first experience of the series proper, or rather a skimmed off the top variant. Yes, much like other racing game series’ you can limit the real race length down to something a bit more sedate, and you should.

For the most part, that’s the boredom part taken care of, now we just need to talk about the racing. Well, it isn’t all that great if I’m honest. I’d go as far as to say that NASCAR Heat 5 is the antithesis of Assetto Corsa Competizione. While I found the latter to be great to race versus its overall driving, the former has a driving style that is not much better and horrid racing. No one defends their position, rather sticking to the race line they have committed to. This is not just on the banks either, I’m including on the straights. It almost feels like synchronized swimming with cars that are quite slow or sluggish.

With the default setting, picking up the throttle can take at least a second between putting my finger down and my driver putting their foot down. My driver in themselves was a question mark even to myself, as the character creation surprised me for what is perceived to be a close-minded and rather white-washed “sport.” You can have a human with breasts, a luminescent purple beard, and a neon green ponytail, and nothing is said about it. That is a lot more detail than F1 2020‘s character gives: A collection of presets with external details determined by you. It was refreshing to see a more open creator than I was expecting.

Though back to the racing itself, there is a tighter pack of cars, if anything this is the good thing about NASCAR. With series like Formula 1, Formula E, and many other racing series, there is a lot of “field spread;” a succinct way of saying you can tell which cars have all the money. If there is one thing NASCAR does well that its games would replicate, it is the lack of field spread resulting in exciting to the line racing, especially with shorter race stints. Crucial seconds are won and lost with tiny mistakes, making simple miscalculations of when to take your left turn a game-changer.

Surprisingly that was also something I’ve learned, it is not all left turns. I know, I was shocked when I saw a real track too, “What is this, a right-hand turn? I’m not a YouTuber!” At least not one of them anyway. Joking aside, even on the proper race tracks in the dirt, truck, and other two series, there is just something missing from the racing that keeps it from being enthralling. I’ll return to the idea that AI aren’t as quick to get their elbows out and fight for position, at least on normal difficulty.

Music didn’t help either. It is flled with Phallic Rock that angry teenage men listen to during their phase and sometimes grow out of, that was muted instantly. Instead, much like those 300+ hours of F1 2019 that I reported on playing the other week, I fell back to my usual comfort place of YouTube Watch Later playlists, the Ready Player One audiobook given the recent news, and Big Finish’s Doctor Who audio dramas. It was that or the same monotone roar of the engines for a few minutes at a time, since you never have to lift off on an oval track.

Being precise is not the aim of NASCAR. Much like America it is loud, boarish, and will cut right through you if you stand in its way. The game itself sticks true to this feeling, both as a help and a hindrance. This meant the racing didn’t take long to get to, though we’ll get to what did stand in its way. At the same time it meant things I didn’t have prior knowledge of flew right over my head. My only understandings of the phrase “Burnout” is killing everyone on six buses, three truck drivers, and seventeen cars on an intersection, or burning out your tires. Turns out, I still don’t know the NASCAR meaning.

Let’s get to a proper issue and not the ramblings of an unknowing idiot who has never seen an actual race: Loading times are slow! it took easily a minute or two just to load into a track and the career mode, all while being advertised Fanatec enthusiast race sim wheels and sequential gear shifters. The gameplay is affected too, as early in the dirt series while staying low in the pack as I learned the ropes, dirt effects were kicking in to the point that the Xbox couldn’t handle it. Lengthy load times and dirt cloud effects slowing gameplay are the only notable performance issues. The latter of which is most likely caused by stacked grandstands.

In conclusion, NASCAR Heat 5 isn’t for everyone; an obvious statement I know. This includes race sim/racing game fans, it is not entirely appealing to those of us who would waste away hours racing some of F1’s most boring tracks. NASCAR Heat is true to form as a test of endurance series, though sadly it is a test of players boredom with an inoffensive racer that has supposedly changed very little from the year prior. It is a steady traction controlled line to a safe podium position, though not first.

An Xbox One copy of NASCAR Heat 5 was provided by Motorsport Games for this review.

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NASCAR Heat 5

$49.99

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• A fine driving model.
• A nice and comfortable career mode.
• A surprisingly open character creation model.

Cons

• Less than satisfiable racing.
• A few performance issues can be found for some.