| | Operation Sports:NASCAR 2005: Design Your Ride
By Shawn Drotar, Managing Editor, OperationSports.com
Throughout the history of NASCAR®, car designs have been the fans' simplest and most obvious connection to their favorite drivers. Even the casual fan can instantly recognize the distinctive look of Jeff Gordon's #24 Du Pont Chevy, Dale Earnhardt Jr's bright red #8 racer, or Tony Stewart's orange-and-black Home Depot #20. The drivers and their bold, colorful rides become inseparable, as tens of thousands of licensed T-shirts and baseball caps confirm. 
Design the perfect ride before setting it free.
Now, in NASCAR® 2005: Chase for the Cup™, you can unleash your inner designer, and create up to 16 different car schemes in four different car classes for use in the Race Now, Season, and Chase for the Cup modes. There are a mind-boggling number of different setups and combinations available, and you can design a ride that you'll be proud to take around the track at 190 miles per hour.
Hit the Drawing Board
Here's how it's done. From the main menu, select Features, and then select Custom Car Garage. If you've created a driver in "Fight to the Top" mode, he'll be standing next to your car in drab, gray coveralls. However, as you design your car, your driver's suit will also change to reflect the color changes and style of your car. You can create a custom car from any of the four series: The Nextel Cup, the NASCAR National Series (Electronic Arts' non-alcoholic version of the Busch Series), the Craftsman Truck Series, or the Featherlite Series. The car in the garage will change to reflect your choice, and you'll start with a plain, gray car—your blank slate. You'll have slots available for four different custom cars in each series, so feel free to experiment. Select one of these slots, and you're on your way.
Design a Skin
Head to the Modify Paint Scheme menu, which will have three sub-menus: Graphics, Paint Colors, and Sponsors. Select one of these (you can change your choice later if you want).
Next, check out Graphics. You'll see a few choices in front of you. If you're creating a Nextel Cup or NNS car, the first one will be the Make—the manufacturer of your new ride. You can choose from a Chevrolet, Dodge, or Ford, and the car you select will change in real-time on the lower right of the screen. The Craftsman Truck and Featherlite Series cars are all the same, so if you're designing one of these cars Make won't be an available option. 
Bright colors give you the visual edge.
Now it's on to the Paint Scheme. This doesn't have to do with colors, as you might think, but rather the overall style of the paint job itself. You'll add your colors later. There are 20 different styles to choose from, ranging from the understated Plain to the completely over-the-top Safari or Spider. One thing's for certain—you'll be able to find somethingdistinctive.
Next, you'll change the number of your car, and the style in which the number appears. There are 14 different number styles to choose from, including old-school block and more modern designs.
Finally, you'll add decals to your car—after all, it's not a NASCAR ride if it's not plastered with big, bright advertisements, right? You can choose four different types of decal coverage: None, minimal, half, and full. Once you've got things set the way you like them, it's time to hit the B button and head back out.
Color it In
Now, let's give this thing some color. Head to the Paint Colors menu, and you'll see your car rotating slowly on the right with menu choices on the left. There are nine different colors you can assign to your car in nine different places. The Primary and Secondary colors are usually the main colors of your ride (although the chosen Paint Scheme can change that a bit), while the Highlight, Detail, and Extra colors add a little flash. The Side Inner and Side Outer colors fill in the numbers and their outline. The Roof Inner and Roof Outer colors do the same for the numbers atop the car. The left stick selects a base color, and the right stick selects its brightness, so there's a limitless number of color choices available. 
Sponsor logos add a nice finishing touch.
Get Some Backing
Once you're finished with that, back out and head to the Sponsors menu. You'll have five different places on the car to place your sponsors' logos. There are real NASCAR sponsors to choose from along with a selection of colorful and eccentric fictional ones, adding up to 85 sponsors in total. They can be placed on the hood, the trunk (in two places), the rear quarter panel, the back end, and the door. You can mix and match logos to taste.
There—you've created the next legendary NASCAR design! Now get out on the tracks and show 'em what you're made of. Just try to keep that fancy new ride of yours in one piece …
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