Chat with NASCAR Now's Tim Brewer

Welcome to SportsNation! On Monday, Tim Brewer will stop by to chat some NASCAR.

Brewer, one of the most successful crew chiefs in NASCAR history with 53 wins, 55 poles and two NASCAR Cup Series championships, joined ESPN in 2007 and reports from the popular ESPN Tech Center during race telecasts.

A native of the Winston-Salem, N.C., area, Brewer started his racing career in 1969 at the age of 14 with local driver Ernie Shaw at Winston-Salem's Bowman Gray Stadium. In 1973, at the age of 18, Brewer became one of the youngest crew chiefs in NASCAR history when he joined the Cup Series team of Winston-Salem driver Richard Childress and served for five years.

Send your questions now and chat at 1:30 p.m. ET Monday!

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You would have to be a lot closer to the inside of the Joe Gibbs Racing organization to make that call. They have a lot of talent, so it just takes some time to harness those energies. Joe Gibbs has a lot invested in those guys. Before long, you'll see them running in the front and doing as well as Joe Gibbs thinks they can, or he will make some changes.

Let me put it to you this way. It's one of those deals where Childress has had some coversation with Kyle Busch and Joe Gibbs. When he gets fed up, he gets fed up. When he warns you to not bang on his race cars, you need to listen. Apparently he promised that was going to do something the next time he didn't listen. When he makes a promise, I'll cash that check.

The aero of this car is not as good as we've seen with the older generation of cars. The tires are always getting better. The suspension system is the same that we've been running for a way many years. It's all been manipulated to a certain extent. As long as you have 15 inch wheels which limits some changes that you can make. What you have is pretty much what you have. It's basically a 1964 Chevelle. This car drives better, but these cars are very aero dependent. We didn't run the same stuff years ago. We ran front springs, we didn't run nearly as much rear spring in the car. It's a challenge to run these cars. These guys have to be very very good to drive them and have a lot of talent.

Since the beginning of last season NASCAR has told the drivers that they can take their "gloves off" and drive. But yet drivers are still getting fined and being put on probation for little on track incidents. I'm all for safety but the only tracks that the gloves get taken off of are Daytona and Talladega (for obvious reasons). What gives? Will we ever see any rivalrys where driver aren't put on probation?

Nascar Heat 2002 Reviews - PlayStack

A review from someone who’s actually played the game : June 25, 2001

As someone who’s actually played the game, unlike the person before me, and as someone who’s actually a fan of NASCAR, unlike the person before me, I will give my review of what I think is one of the best NASCAR games ever.

This game has very good graphics, with great looking cars and tracks. The graphics are definitely better than NASCAR 2001, which was only a slight upgrade over the PS1 graphics.

The game does not have commentary, unlike NASCAR 2001. However, ask yourselves, would commentary really help here? It would just be repetitious; "Rudd takes the lead…". I don’t know, maybe commentary would be better than nothing, but it is something that I don’t miss.

The sound department is pretty good, with well done spotting by The King. The cars sound realistic as well.

Gameplay is also very fun. Not only does the game have racing mode, but it also has Beat the Heat. Beat the Heat is something that is sure to occupy a lot of your time.

This game cannot really be compared to GT3 at all; they are in the same genre, but that is all. GT3 contains real cars that you can drive on the street, and contains much shorter races. NASCAR Heat is like NASCAR racing, so it is a lot different than GT3. If you are a NASCAR fan, definitely go out and buy this game. If you’re not a NASCAR fan, but a fan of racing games, you’ll probably still enjoy this.

Great Game : July 5, 2001

This is a fun game. I haven’t tried EA Sports NASCAR game for PS2, but the reviews for it on this site were not very good. So I decided to try NASCAR Heat. If you are a NASCAR fan, you should get your money’s worth from this one. The graphics are awesome. There is no degradation when there are many cars on the screen. The sound is great too. The Beat the Heat, and Race the Pro modes are a blast. I like the Championship season mode best. In the expert mode, there are an infinite number of car setups. Racing in the expert mode is very hard. Anything less than perfect driving results in spins and crashes, just like the real thing. Not being that good yet, I race in the normal mode which is much more forgiving, but still very challenging. You can bump a little without ending your race. To avoid jerky steering it’s best to use the analog stick which takes a little getting used to. The challenge is to stay down in the dark area of the track (the groove), if you don’t, you will see the competition pulling away. Staying down in the corners is much easier said than done. Also, the draft in this game is very real. I have gained several seconds on laps by drafting. I have also seen cars get loose when you draft right on their tail. Be careful not to rear end him though. If you mess up your front spoiler, you can forget about ever catching up to anyoneone else. One thing I don’t like are the yellow flags (which can be turned off). Cautions last for 4 laps, which on some tracks can be up to 6 minutes long. That’s a long time to sit there doing nothing. Also it seems that fuel is used up at the same rate on caution laps as green flag laps. So I turn the yellow flags off. I highly recommend this game if you love Winston Cup racing.

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