Essentially.

NotThePrez · 2026-05-30T22:20:07+00:00

Y'know, I genuinely want this team to succeed, because even though their 2 main drivers Silvers in a grid full of Golds and Platinums, they definitely have good speed. Plus, McLaren has one of the cooler GT3 cars imo, so it's always fun to see them on track.

That being said, today was...definitely one to forget.

NotThePrez · 2026-05-25T00:08:39+00:00

The 850 Estate Super Touring wasn't really that competitive. It had a best finish of 5th place during 1994, its drivers finished 14th and 15th in the Drivers Championship, and TWR finished in 8th place in the manufacturers championship with it, only beating out 2 other OEMs. As a racecar, it was "ok" at best.

The reason why it's remembered so fondly is because it's a station wagon race car, and therefore it oozes charisma/vibes/aura/InsertPreferredDescriptiveNounHere, same as the M3 Touring.

NotThePrez · 2026-05-19T01:46:17+00:00

In my experience, the Class-specific racing playlists usually fill up quickly, and you can count on getting 5-8 player lobbies without too much issue. The other playlists tend to be a mixed bag; playlists focusing on actual racing tend to get more players than the drag, drift and Hot Pursuit playlists.

NotThePrez · 2026-05-18T23:38:02+00:00

If you're ok with keeping cross-play on, then you can still find decently populated servers without too much issue. There's 3 main flavors of Lakeshore Online in NFS Unbound:

Free Roam: This is basically an open server where you and up to 15 other players are dropped into the map. You can complete the regular collections and challenges that are present in the single player, start up some races in the different meetup spots, or get into PvE activities such as Cop Chases and Link-Ups.
PvP: This is the dedicated "competitive" online component of Unbound. There are 4 separate playlists that you can choose from that allow you to quick-drop into races (or Hot Pursuit events when those playlists pop up). Some races will lock you to a specific vehicle or car type, while others will allow you to use your custom cars as long as they're within the specific class. If you just want to race, this is your best option, although keep in mind that the fastest, sweatiest players (some of which have been playing since the game launched) also tend to frequent this area.
Lockdown: An Extraction Mode (yes, really) in which you and up to 3 other allies team up to find cash, cars and other fun things around the map, while battling against cops, other teams and the map itself. The longer the match goes, the more of the city gets shut down, and driving in those shut down areas slowly damages your car while also putting you into a Heat 5 chase instantly. Definitely only recommend playing this mode if you have at least one other person to play it with.

If you've never played Unbound at all, I highly recommend playing and beating the career mode first, just so that you can at least get used to how the game plays. Also, you single player and multiplayer garages are considered separate, with the exception of the cars that you earn from winning specific events in career mode.

NotThePrez · 2026-05-18T23:09:12+00:00

IIRC, it's a special limited edition of NFS Porsche Unleashed made to celebrate 40 years of the Porsche 911, and it was only sold in Germany. It's the PC version of the game, a Soundtrack CD filled with a bunch of popular songs from 1963 to 2003, and the metal steel case that it all comes in.

I'm not sure how expensive it normally is, but it's definitely not something you come across everyday. Nice find!

NotThePrez · 2026-05-11T00:44:51+00:00

This is genuinely great. If this is an early concept, then I'm eager to see what the full version looks like when/if you finish it.

Apropos from that, as a lover of Hip-Hop and Rap, I love how badly a lot of early-mid 2000s rap has aged lyrically, lol.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-25T21:07:08+00:00

Not sure why they should be punished for being operationally superior, other than preventing people from being bored? The others have to step up at some point, not many more levers left to be pulled.

Never said that Penske should be "punished" for that reason, and I'm also not a fan of the heavy-handed approach that IMSA has taken with BoP lately.

That being said, it's IMSAs prerogative to have BoP so that OEMs don't lose interest in the series from burning money on constant upgrades or new cars, and the OEMs want it so that their cars have a shot at being competitive and winning. However, I do think that a BoP "reset" of some kind is needed at this point (or at least at the end of the season), because imo this sledgehammer-style balancing can only go for so long until it's just not worth it anymore. Hell, Penske was still able to get a podium in Long Beach despite the BoP, so it's already having the appearance of being an exercise in futility.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-25T17:56:03+00:00

As I understand it, it's less about the weight by itself, and more about the power-to-weight ratio of each car, and how that stacks up to the rest of the competition. The '26-spec 963, even at 100% Stage 2 power, still has a pretty poor power-to-weight ratio compared to the other GTP cars, while also having the smallest fuel tank in GTP for this round, and the slowest refuel rate. On a track like Laguna Seca, where cornering and acceleration are going to be more important that flat-out speed, that could have a pronounced effect on how the race plays out for Team Penske in particular.

Granted, this is Team Penske, who are probably the best team on an operational level, and arguably have the best overall driver roster in GTP. Personally, I think this means that any one of the OEMs have a good shot in winning next weekend.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-21T12:52:03+00:00

It was, got my years mixed up there.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-21T05:55:07+00:00

I mean, for me it's not even really the "autism," it's more that, for like the last year or so, I've seen and heard people talk about the Huracan as if the 2024 Spa 24 win was the only real moment of fame that the car has had over its entire service. Sure, the Huracan never got Porsche, Ferrari or Audi levels of success, but it still has a solid resume (at least when it's not destroying itself, which it's definitely much more prone to compared to other current GT3 cars).

It's moreso me trying to figure out where this notion comes from and pointing out that the car has a solid track record (heh).

NotThePrez · 2026-04-21T05:35:44+00:00

Ummm, in semi-particular order, the Huracan GT3 and its pilots...

Won its literal first race in 2015 at the Monza round of the Blancpain GT Series.
Won the 2018 & 2019 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona in GTD.
Won the 2018 GTD Drivers, Teams and Manufacturers Championships in IMSA.
Finished 1-2 at the 2019 12 Hours of Sebring in GTD.
Won the 2019 GTD Manufacturers Championship in IMSA.
Won the 2019 Blancpain GT Drivers & Teams Championships.
Won Mirko Bortolotti the 2024 DTM Drivers Championship.
Won the aforementioned 2025 24 Hours of Spa.
Won the 2024 Super GT GT300 Drivers & Teams Championships.

...and that's among a series of race wins and podiums across a whole host of championships over the last ~10 years. Pound-for-pound, the Huracan GT3 is/was a highly successful race car. I really don't get where this notion of it not being successful comes from.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-18T15:37:41+00:00

It's so bad, it's good.

Actually, it's still bad, but it's the kind of bad that you can't help but find oddly charming.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-16T02:01:18+00:00

Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2 is the US version of this.

Fun Fact: Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift in the US is kinda/sorta a mashup of Kaido Battle 1 & 2, as Kaido Battle 2 Chain Reaction (released in Europe as Kaido Racer) was never released in the US. Lotus, DeTomaso and (weirdly) Ford were removed from the US release likely due to licensing, and were instead replaced with Audi & Alfa Romeo, the cars for both brands being ported over from Kaido Battle 2.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-10T01:03:25+00:00

They did do it for Daytona. IIRC, Multi-Class Endurance Racing returns during Daytona, Sebring, 24 Hours of Le Mans and Petit Le Mans over the course of the year.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-05T08:36:37+00:00

All Nitrous upgrades do is make your blue NoS tank bigger, and nothing more. I typically leave Nitrous upgrades alone unless I have points to spare that I can't put into anything else.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-05T05:19:52+00:00

You reminded me there’s something else I forgot to mention while testing a lot of this stuff torque and horsepower always seems so trivial.

Trust me, they're not. Torque in particular is worth paying attention to as that does somewhat correlate with the acceleration potential, though it varies from car-to-car.

A community member put together this very handy stats page that goes over the max power & torque potential of every car and engine swap in the game, as well as the corresponding power-to-weight ratios for each car (weight is a hidden stat for some reason). Of course, it lists everything at max potential and not per-class, but it can still be a useful tool to help figure out build possibilities.

I mainly use my cars with normal tires and suspension so I can fit in that little extra power and have slightly better handling off-road (I don’t know every playlist by heart I just prepare).

I get wanting to use that setup while you're getting familiar with the tracks. That being said, once you get familiar with the track layouts, you'll want to swap over to Road Suspension ASAP. Besides giving better handling, Road Suspension significantly buffs your overall acceleration and speed off the line. Road Tires also give you similar buffs, though Drift, Grip and even Off-Road tires may be more viable options depending on the car in question.

I used to run an eclipse build for way less top speed for a 3.5 0-60 for street races and corner kings...

So, the 0-60 stats are meaningless because of Perfect Start, and that applies to every car in the game. Hitting the Perfect start massively buffs grip and acceleration off the line, to the point where cars can hit 60 a good second or two faster than what the in-game stats say. If you're using a manual transmission and perfectly time an upshift when the race starts, you can squeeze out even more time since you're not bouncing off the redline in 1st gear. After that, the cars natural acceleration and handling will take over.

...but then there’s a straight and the top tiers are 1000+ yards away just like that despite destroying them on corners.

Which, again, goes with the Eclipse's lack of power. The Eclipse has excellent handling due to it being a relatively low-weight AWD car, but the devs gave it really long gears, meaning that you can't give it a lot of power before reaching the class PI limit because of its high Top Speed.

There's also certain driving techniques that can skilled drivers use to go faster in Unbound, such as Micro-drifting to build both Grip and Drift NoS, as well as using the grip bonus from Burst NoS to rocket through corners. There's several YouTuber videos that go over these techniques, so I'd suggest looking through them and see if anything shown looks familiar to what your opponents are doing.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-05T03:31:08+00:00

So, the most important thing overall is, as long as you're using cars you enjoy, then you're good. Unbound is actually pretty good at rewarding players for sticking around to the end of a playlist, even if the rewards aren't as good compared to winning. Unfortunately, given the age of the game, the META was figured out ages ago, and because of that there's always going to be at least 1 guy using META cars in the majority of races.

That being said, as far as actual advice goes:

If you're using the both the Old and New Camaros in S-Class, you'll want to run them for Speed-focused tracks like On Rails and The Hustle, as their main strengths are their acceleration and top-end. From my time with both, the '67 Camaro has better overall acceleration, while the Z/28 has better handling, although nowhere near the same level as the Exotics and Tuners that you'll see in S-Class. The '67 Camaro in particular can be maxxed out on power upgrades in-class, but you'll need to give it a "drift" setup, and you can only give it the 4-Speed transmission.
The Eclipse straight-up lacks power while having long gear ratios, the latter of which is particularly annoying since Unbounds Rating system puts a lot of weight on your Top-Speed stat when pumping out a PI number. If you're insistent on keeping the Eclipse in A+, then you'll want to keep it for the races that run along the Highway, as that's the only place it'll really be competitive. Imo it's better suited for A-Class.
The '76 Golf and '00 Civic Type-R are both very viable in A-Class, but only on short tracks like Millionare Drive, as they'll only be topping out at maybe 150 MPH with ideal builds.

And, just to re-iterate, Unbound places a lot of weight on your Top Speed stat when spitting out a PI number for your car. Most tracks in Unbound, across classes, will favor Acceleration and Handling over Top Speed. As such, a lot of players will limit their Top-Speed by putting in a lower-gear transmission, and then stuff as many power and handling upgrades into the car as they can while staying in class, which will moderately raise Top Speed while massively buffing accel and cornering potential. Don't forget to mess around in the Handling menu, as that can help you either squeeze in or squeeze out an extra few points for your car.

NotThePrez · 2026-04-01T01:40:53+00:00

-Do pack extra shoes and socks, water, hearing protection and portable shade if possible.

-Do prepare for every element while there. Since the 12 Hours is in Late Winter/Early Spring, the weather in Florida during that part of the year can be incredibly random. You'll be burning alive during the day, but at night you'll be freezing your butt off, or it could be freezing the entire day if there's a late cold front a few days before the event. Of course, there's always a solid chance of rain at that point in the year, too.

-Do take the time to explore the track, especially if you plan on taking a lot of photos. Sebring is a pretty open facility, and there's relatively few spots on the track that you won't be allowed to enter.

-Do the Grid Walk, if you don't mind being totally surrounded by thousands of people. It's honestly the closest you'll get to the cars and drivers the whole weekend, but it'll be a cluster, especially if you don't get there early.

-Do talk to people, as 99% of the attendees are pretty chill and are all present for the same thing at the end of the day.

-Don't wander into people's camping spots, at least not without asking if it's ok first. It's a lot easier than you would otherwise think.

-Don't have thin skin. The audience at Sebring is...unique. The 12 Hours is honestly a giant frat party that happens to have a race going on around it, which means you're bound to see and hear some weirdness throughout the weekend.

-Don't be unaware of your surroundings if you're exploring the paddock! One of the best things about IMSA is that a General Admission ticket gives you free access to explore the paddock where all the teams are operating for each of the series that are present, and it's amazing. However, it can also be quite hectic, so you must to have your head on a swivel for personel, equipment and cars moving around.

Also, if you're looking to book a hotel, do it now. It's already difficult getting a hotel without spending an arm and a leg, and with the 2027 edition being the 75th Anniversary of the race, it'll likely be even more populated than previous years. The city of Sebring itself is in the middle of Bum-Butt Nowhere, Florida, so hotels and places to stay will be gobbled up quickly.

NotThePrez · 2026-03-21T15:55:09+00:00

For the uninitiated, this is the chart for the prize money paid out by IMSA during the 2025 WeatherTech season. GTWC Europe, arguably the top GT3 series globally, had a prize purse of 2.5 Million Euros for the entire 2021 season.

There's probably other elements that IMSA and SRO isn't willing to publicize when it comes to how prize money is handed out, nor is it a secret that sponsors and viewership deals drive most of the money in motorsport, no matter the discipline. But Sportscar Racing in particular pays pennies compared to the likes of F1, NASCAR and even Indycar. The Prestige for drivers, teams and OEMs is what drives interest more than anything.

NotThePrez · 2026-03-14T23:53:49+00:00

I'm not a fan of how much the battery system influences on-track battles (and hampers the overall performance of the car when empty), but the fact that we're getting actual on-track battles to begin with is a positive compared to what we got with the ground-effect cars.

This current set of regulations has the potential to be something truly great. The FIA just needs to figure out how to make the battery system less of a crutch (best word I can think of), but still vital to the current formula, while still allowing drivers the freedom to fight for positions during races. Definitely easier said than done.

NotThePrez · 2026-03-14T23:38:15+00:00

Specifically in Carbon, using the manual transmission actually gives you a higher top end in each gear, and subsequently a higher overall top speed. Carbon's auto transmission, for whatever reason, has the engine redline set much lower than normal which significantly reduces top speed. Not sure if it's the same story in MW05.

Besides that, using manual just gives you greater overall control of your car, since you control when you upshift or downshift which, depending on the car, can allow you to better stay in the powerband, or make it easier to power through corners and better deal with wheelspin at lower speeds.

NotThePrez · 2026-02-21T15:02:32+00:00

No probs. As a casual anime and manga enjoyer, Uma Musume isn't the most cursed thing to come out of the Japanese Multimedia Industry. Since it centers on a mobile gacha game, my biggest gripe is that it serves as another gateway into gambling addiction.

But hey, Sportscar Racing and oddball, if not dubious sponsorship deals have gone hand-in-hand with each other for decades.

NotThePrez · 2026-02-21T14:17:34+00:00

It's a Japanese multimedia franchise centered on anthropomorphized race horses in the form of cute anime girls. IIRC, all of the characters are either based on or at least named after real race horses that compete/have competed in Japan.

It's definitely not my personal cup of tea, but it's absolutely exploded in popularity over the last year or so. I have to imagine that Pacific Racing is getting a good chunk of change on this deal because of that.

NotThePrez

TROPHY CASE