Race Driver: GRID

• Always hold off on new races until you can afford one of the better cars for that event. You wouldn't think it would make a significant difference, but it will, especially when you've got a team like Ravenswest competing.

• Don't do driver events where you drive for another team, unless it's for the Le Mans because you can't afford a car to participate yourself. You'll acquire money and renown much faster driving for yourself.

• Speaking of the Le Mans, participate and do well. You get some extremely valuable sponsors from it. Remember, the race is very, very long, so you don't need to be in first place the whole way if you can regain it. You're racing by class, so the cars against which you must excel will not significantly exceed yours in performance.

• Conquer one region at a time, unless you absolutely can't stand a race you need to beat. Again, moving up in tiers opens up extremely well-paying races and sponsors.

• The AI is extraordinarily willing to knock you out of the way, and in almost every race there's no penalty for their doing so. Do not get between an AI car and their chosen line, or they'll sweep right across and send you spinning. Speaking of collisions, in the Touge race, get ahead of the other car, then force them to ram you. They'll take a huge time penalty, which will allow you to take the rest of the race carefully and win on time. This is especially useful in the East-meets-West Viper vs. Honda or whatever challenge, because the Viper is heavy.

• Test drive your cars to get a feel for how they'll respond to your chosen control settings. The cars may not be realistic, but they do tend to be consistent, so learning how to handle a car once, well, will usually set you for future races.

• Try to stay out of the way of the A.I., because they'll slam into you and send you hurtling off the course at a million miles per hour at a moment's notice. This also goes for your wingman/backup driver.

• The A.I. rubberbands a bit, but you can actually build up a strong enough lead that you can make some mistakes as the first-place driver and lose nothing but some buffer space.

• Incidentally, you need a good teammate, because there are a lot of races that are scored by team, and you're not winning that even if you get every first place if Ravenwest is consistently landing both second and third.

• Always do Le Mans. If you can't afford a car, drive another team's. The reputation and money you gain are exceptionally useful.

• Try to have the nicest car usable in a race. It really, really makes a difference.

• You can't have difference sponsors on your car and your teammate's car, so consider carefully whether it makes sense to have sponsors that demand, for example, a first-place finish, because only one of you is getting it.

• Be careful when you're using your Instant Replay that you back up far enough to allow you to avoid the crash. When you restart from a point in the past, I don't think you can rewind past that point with a subsequent use of Instant Replay.

• The physics are unrealistic, but largely consistent. The good thing is that you can learn how to drive the cars and do cool stuff with them. The bad thing is that you don't get good with them by expecting them to behave like real cars.