NASCAR 14

If you would like to get this out of the way as quick as possible, I have discovered a method that works. How does racing just 14 out of 36 races sound? What you need to do is start up a single season under the single player tab at the main menu. Pick your career car or favorite driver, it doesn't matter. You will obviously want settings on easy and any settings you desire to use are all okay. Now, here is step by step of what you want to do:

1. Race, and win, at Daytona, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Bristol. (Events 2-5)

2. Scroll down and skip ahead to Kansas (Event 12). The six races in between will be simulated for you, and you will receive random results with diminishing returns. I have discovered that skipping seven races is too many, but six is the perfect number. Anyway, Go ahead and race, and win, at Kansas. There is a good chance you can leave here still leading the points like me.

3. Scroll down and skip ahead to Daytona (Event 20) and win that race. After this simulation, you may have fallen in the points a bit. I was sitting in 5th place in the standings with six wins now.

4. Skip another six races and race + win at Atlanta (Event 27). Now you will be able to see your position. I personally had fallen all the way back to 15th in points. Remember that the two wildcard spots go to the 11th-20th place drivers with the most wins. With seven wins under your belt, you should easily be able to receive the spot.

5. Go ahead and race the regular season finale at Richmond (Event 28). If you are for some reason outside of the top 20, restart the season or see if it is possible to make it inside the top 20 during the Richmond race. Your finish doesn't matter here, as long as you make sure you don't fall outside the top 20 like I said.

6. If everything has been done correctly up to this point, you will be sitting in 11th place, inside of the chase, after Richmond. Race the first three races in the chase and win them. (Chicago, New Hampshire, Dover, Events 29-31). Feel free to take note of who is high in the standings and wreck them if it makes you feel good about yourself :D Doing so will increase your points lead drastically.

From here, you can do one of two things.

7a. Finish up the season like normal. Hey, all you had to do was race 8 regular season races and the 10 chase races, so it wasn't that bad. OR,

7b. You can still win the championship if you want to simulate some more. Personally, I dominated Events 29-31, simulated 32-33, dominated 34, simulated 35-36, and dominated the final two events/races.

WARNING: DO NOT SIMULATE HOMESTEAD!!! Don't be a dummy like me. I simulated the final race because I was lazy and it caused me to have to do this method all over again. Doing so caused me to return to the main menu with just the "season results" screen and no achievement even though I was in first place. The best part is I was able to confirm it works, as I have done it twice now. You must race Homestead, and watch the silly animation as your driver gets the championship. Achievement unlocks after the loading screen.

Feel free to comment on the solution or help me improve it.

Thanks to the updated Chase format, you can complete a season by racing only 9 races (!) of the 36 race season. First, let me explain how qualifying for the Chase works.

The Chase now consists of 16 drivers. Any driver with a win who is in the Top 30 in the points standings automatically qualifies for the Chase. If there are more spots available in the Chase than drivers with wins, the extra spots will be filled based on points. The first part is what we care about, as we will be skipping chunks of races at a time.

Go to Single Player, Single Season, and pick the Sprint Cup season (the left option). Choose any driver then select the Daytona 500.

Change your settings to the following:
Difficulty 0%
Qualifying 5/3/3 (5/3 on short tracks)
Race Length 2%
Tire Wear 1x
Fuel 1x
Flags Off
Damage Off (or Visual. Doesn't matter)

We're going to skip qualifying for almost every race. Because the difficulty is set to 0%, you can pass the entire field in just a couple laps despite starting in last place, and with flags off, you can make passes in the apron where you'd normally be penalized. If you don't feel confident in your ability to pass 42 other drivers, you can qualify on the pole for each race, or increase the percentage of laps. You shouldn't have any trouble though.

With that being said, race and win the Daytona 500. There are only 4 laps, but because the track is 2.5 miles long, there's plenty of time to get to the front. Drafting behind the cars in front of you will allow you to sling shot past them on the front and backstretch. We now have our win in hand and just have to stay in the top 30 in points.

Back in the menu, go to the schedule and skip past the next 6 races to Darlington. The results of the races you skip will be simulated. Repeat the process from Daytona: skip qualifying and win the race. This track is actually kind of tricky, so qualifying isn't out of the question. Again though, you should have no problem. You may leave this race still leading the points (I was).

Skip the next 6 races to Michigan and win there. After this race i was hovering on the fringe of the top 25. Now skip to either Indianapolis or Pocono. I personally chose Pocono, which is a difficult track. The turns can be very tricky and it can make passing 42 cars difficult. After a couple attempts I settled for a 29th place finish, which kept me in the Top 30. So if you want to race Pocono, go ahead and qualify. Or choose Indy, which is an easier track I think. Either way, get the best result you can and skip to the final race of the regular season at Richmond.

You're going to have to qualify here, as short tracks generally aren't great for passing multiple cars over a short distance. Check you're place in the standings beforehand. You should be hovering in the 20's. At this point, there where 15 drivers who had won a race, including me, so I was in good shape. Winning the race will improve your standing a bit, hopefully further solidifying your spot in the Chase.

The "regular season" is now over. The final 10 races make up the Chase for the Sprint Cup. The way it works is that these 10 races are split into 4 rounds. After the first 3 races (Chicago, Loudon, Dover), drivers 13-16 in the standings are eliminated. After the next 3 races (Kansas, Charlotte, Talladega), drivers 9-12 are eliminated. After the next 3 (Martinsville, Texas, Phoenix) drivers 5-8 are eliminated, setting up the final race at Homestead as a winner-take-all race of the top 4 drivers. If a driver wins a race in a particular round, they automatically qualify for the next round. This is what we'll be doing.

You'll be repeating the same process as you did during the regular season. Choose Chicago, skip qualifying, win. Skip to Kansas and repeat. Skip to Texas; repeat. Skip to Homestead, win the race and win the championship. A more detailed explanation can be found in my solution here:



*DO NOT skip past any group of 3 races without winning one of them. This will result in you being eliminated from contention, as you won't have a win to guarantee your spot in the next round and your finishes will be poor from simulating, meaning you won't be getting many points.*

And that's it! Instead of racing a full 36 race season, you raced only 9 races.

Please comment if you can improve the solution in any way. Any feedback is appreciated.