Welcome to the official NASCAR 26 Career Mode walkthrough! In this series, we’ll give you the inside line on making the most out of your NASCAR 26 career, working your way up from a start-up team in the ARCA Menards Series to the upper echelons of the NASCAR Cup Series.

Today, we’re going to look at how moving up to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series allows you to expand your Facilities, and how it affects your management of Parts.

Facility Upgrades

Something you’ll probably notice right away as you look to start your first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season: you can’t buy new Parts before the first race. However, you can jump right in on as many Facilities upgrades as you’d like, if you have the cash. The four Facility upgrades that are unlocked in the Truck Series are as follows:

• Purchase Heavy Machinery: Increase your staff size to allow for two more Mechanics, increasing your staff from two to four and increasing Work Points between races.
• Create HR Department: Improve the quality of your applicants for all staff positions.
• Partner with Supply Companies: Unlock access to higher quality parts (Level 6).
• Create Marketing Department: Unlock the ability to hire a Marketing Manager alongside your PR Manager, who unlocks Merchandising for additional income.

Parts Management and Rebuilds

At the Truck Series level, because you have multiple trucks to manage, you’ll be prompted with a choice of which truck receives any new part that you buy if you choose to install it right away. Higher quality parts will unlock gradually as your rookie Truck season progresses, all the way up to Level 6 once you unlock the proper Facilities upgrade.

Rebuilds are also introduced in the Truck Series. A Rebuild restores your parts to the beginning of their life, saving you money on needing to replace Worn parts. However, Rebuilds come at a larger Work Points cost that may be prohibitive to more routine repairs on other parts. You may have an easier time rebuilding parts if you’ve upgraded your Facility to have four Mechanics instead of two.

Next time, we’ll look ahead to the Chase and how it differs from your championship pursuit in ARCA.