Welcome to the official NASCAR 25 Career Mode walkthrough! In this series, we’ll give you the inside line on making the most out of your NASCAR 25 career, working your way up from a start-up team in the ARCA Menards Series to the upper echelons of the NASCAR Cup Series.

This week, we’re focusing on how to improve your Reputation—the key to advancing your way through the NASCAR ranks.

Building Your Reputation

There are many ways that a real-world driver builds up their reputation in the sport, both good and bad. If you’re trying to build a positive one, you’ve generally got two ways to do it: be fast, or be clean. That’s how you’ll do it in NASCAR 25, too. The basics are simple—you’ll earn Reputation Points for every lap where your race pace is up to par, and for every clean lap you turn.

That’s not all, though. You’ll also score RP for things like meeting your sponsor goals, leading laps, and most of all, for winning races and championships. It shouldn’t be hard for you to plug away with a couple hundred RP at a time at the start of your ARCA career, but once your machine is up to par, it’s easy to take thousands per race.

Eyeing the Next Level

Itching to work your way into the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series? Need to supercharge those RP boosts to get there? That’s what your PR Manager is there for. Remember, every PR Manager will give you a percentage bonus for your weekend’s work, and they’ll also find you PR opportunities that regularly offer RP boosts when they show up. It can be a good idea to go for the RP whenever you can.

Once you reach 10,000 Reputation Points, your Reputation will reach Level 2. It’s a sign of progress, but you’ll still have some work to do to get out of ARCA—you’ll need 25,000 RP in total for the chance to move up to the trucks.

Welcome to the official NASCAR 25 Career Mode walkthrough! In this series, we’ll give you the inside line on making the most out of your NASCAR 25 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 focusing on a different area of team management: the sponsorship that helps fund your operations, and the staff that adds to your resources along the way.

Managing and Attracting Sponsors

Once you’ve started turning some heads with your finishes, the new sponsor offers will start rolling in. Head to the Office and over to Sponsors to see your current sponsor, change your incentives per race for the current one, and what’s on the line with your next possible sponsor. Keep in mind that if you change your incentives, you’re eligible for higher or lower payments depending on what you pick, and your goals in each session will adjust accordingly.

After you sign a new sponsor, you’ll get to pick a new incentive for them. They’ll also automatically be applied to all the primary sponsor slots on your car. You might want to hit the Paint Kit to give your car a fresh look that reflects your new partners!

Managing and Hiring Staff

Also available in your Race Shop, through the Office, is a look at your Staff. Candidates will pop up throughout your Career for all of your available roles. Each new candidate will come with a hiring cost, and all will offer different bonuses to help you progress.

Crew Chiefs offer percentage bonuses to your Work Points, and Agents offer percentage bonuses to your earnings. You’ll start out with one Mechanic to go alongside your Crew Chief and Agent, but soon enough, you’ll be able to hire a second one to increase your Work Points. The better Mechanics you have, the more Work Points you’ll get, so be sure to review your new candidates before committing to repairs for the week.

Also joining the team as you move forward will be your PR Manager, whose job is to find you additional off-track opportunities to make a few extra bucks, earn some bonus Work Points, or improve your Reputation. These opportunities won’t show up between every race, so be strategic with your choices.

Over time, you may have more possible Staff candidates for any given role than you have available slots—it’s up to you to determine who you want on your squad at any given time. Hiring costs are higher for better staff members, but they’ll also pay for themselves over time.

Welcome to the official NASCAR 25 Career Mode walkthrough! In this series, we’ll give you the inside line on making the most out of your NASCAR 25 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 heading back to your Race Shop for an in-depth look at taking care of your vehicle, from repairing your existing parts to buying new ones.

Buying New Parts

An important part of your race prep is heading to the Parts Shop. Each part on your car has a rating that ranges from 0 to 100, and these scores combine for your car’s overall rating. Your first ARCA car will start out with Level 1 parts in all four categories: Body, Chassis, Engine, and Suspension. Level 1 parts carry a maximum Performance rating of 40.

To get faster, you’ll want to upgrade each of these parts as much as you can, up to their top-end Level 5 versions. After buying an upgraded part, you’ll be asked if you’re ready to install it. (Chances are, you will be—good thing that even a poor finish at Daytona is usually lucrative enough to pick up something!)

As you browse through part options, make sure to note how many times a new part can be repaired, as noted by the wrench symbol. Higher-caliber parts can’t be repaired as many times as budget parts can, so they’re more likely to wear out first. When a part is marked as Worn, it can no longer be restored to full condition.

Performing Repairs

Next up is repairing your car, which can either be done with the recommended plan provided by your Crew Chief or customized based on the amount of Work Points your crew has available. The better your crew, the more work points you’ll have, which will come in handy if you finish a race with battered parts that you absolutely need the next time out.

If you choose to assign Work Points manually, you’ll be able to select each of your parts individually to explore their repairs. Each part’s rating is determined by its level and condition, and these scores combine for your overall car rating. Parts that are still in good condition will have a blue bar, while yellow or red condition bars suggest that repairs are more crucial.

Parts can take three levels of repairs: minimum, medium, and maximum. The more abuse a part takes in the previous race, the more work it’ll need to get back to top condition. You can buy new parts both before and after doing your repairs for the week, but different circumstances will dictate which strategy is best for you.

On one hand, buying and installing a new part won’t require you to spend Work Points, and you can use more of them on the parts in the worst condition. On the other, doing your repairs before buying a new part you want means that you can stash the repaired part in your Inventory  as a backup for the future. Installing an Inventory part won’t cost you any Work Points, but you won’t be able to further improve its condition until after the next race.

Sometimes, there won’t be any way to repair all of your existing parts to 100% condition unless you go on a spending spree. If you’re not able (or willing) to change everything out, but feeling unsure about the best way to go about repairs, your Crew Chief’s recommended plan is a good place to start.

Managing Inventory

Upgrading your car is a costly exercise. Top-tier parts cost tens of thousands of dollars, and the only way to claim that much prize money in a single swoop is by taking a checkered flag. Big wins tend to come at a cost, though—you may have used some of your equipment up pretty thoroughly to take them. Check out the Schedule tab in the Race Shop to see how much money is on the line for each race win.

Even if you’ve already got top-tier parts across the board for your car, it’s important to keep buying new ones and building up your Inventory. If you’ve got another part ready to go in Inventory when your existing part is worn out, you’ll be all set for the next race. You can buy one part per level in each category per race week.

You can also sell parts you’re not using to recoup a little bit of money. What you’ll get back is determined by the part’s condition and how many more times it can be repaired. Worn parts can also be sold to clear out inventory space. If you’ve got the Work Points to spare, it can be worth fully repairing a part before you replace and sell it in order to take home a few extra bucks.