NASCAR 08 The Countdown Begins

        Welcome to the first part of Sportsgamers's NASCAR 08 countdown, till the release of the game. I will look to try and explain the differences and similarities of NASCAR's 22 tracks. Today we start with one of the biggest and one of the most well known tracks from around the world. Daytona International Super Speedway.  

      Daytona is a 2.5 mile track which features a 3,000 foot back stretch and a 3,800 foot front stretch making NASCAR to have to use Restrictor plates in order to keep the cars under 200 MPH so the cars do not become airborne. The four turns at Daytona are banked at 31 degrees making the cars drive at an angle at a high speed. While Daytona is more of handling track than Talladega Super Speedway, most of the time you do not have to lift off the gas while going around this oval.       

       The Daytona 500 kicks off the Official Points season for the NASCAR Nextel Cup series and also hosts Busch and Truck series race. The 500 is one of the most anticipated and watched sporting event worldwide. Millions of people from over 36 different countries tune it to watch over 500 miles of side by side racing for over 200 laps, to see who will win NASCAR's All-American Race.  Daytona is unique in the fact that is one of the few tracks you can run 3 wide around the entire track, while holding it wide open.  Daytona is rough on tires and once the handling goes away a couple of things will happen. One being the big one, which is a big wreck which collects more than 10 cars throughout the field or two, drivers get back into a single or double file line so that handling will improve and allow more leeway in movement around the track and next to your opponents. 

        Stay tuned for the next installment of our Track Previews as we count down to the release of NASCAR 08, due out on July 23rd.