NASCAR gets hated on for being "making a left turn" and I was one of those ignorant people that thought that way, though I kind of knew in my heart there must be way more to it than that.
The more I've played Heat and read about NASCAR (trying to actually watch a race puts me to sleep), it's quite a thinking man's sport, with the tactics of it mostly revolving around:
1) A trade-off between pit stops and tires wearing down. The way they drive, the speed they drive, and the amount they drive grinds those tires down within a single race. The worse the tire gets, the slower the car gets, until there's a risk the tire can actually blow out. Pulling in for a tire change is a trade between time lost now and time lost in the future.
2) When a car tailgates another car, both gain speed due to some physics woo involving the air, though the one in the back gets a bigger boost. This stacks, quite dramatically, with more cars. This means racers can often engage in tacit diplomacy, do they help each other, does the rear driver try to go around, or does the front driver try to shake the rear driver?
3) A bunch of cars driving in a peloton (like the Tour de France) looks less exciting, but trying to navigate at high speeds in a tight pack like that is a unique challenge.
4) There's a sort of ranking where racers compete first for their position (so the best aren't gimped by being put in the back). Success isn't so much about winning (when you have dozens of racers) but about improving on your starting position.
