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 explore the NASCAR playoffs, which you’ll need to master across three of the four series in Career Mode.
We’re Talking About Playoffs?!
The ARCA Menards Series follows a straightforward championship model: score the most points across all races, and you’ll win the title. As a result, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will be your first encounter with the playoffs, and you’ll see them again in the Xfinity and Cup Series as you continue your journey.
As a rule of thumb, punching your ticket into the playoffs is pretty simple regardless of what NASCAR level you’re at. Win a race, and the odds are pretty good that you’ll be in—you’ll need to be pretty deep in the standings in a season with all sorts of different winners to miss out. Win two or more, and you’ll have one of the top seeds once the playoffs begin. Being the top point scorer at the regular season is also a great way to guarantee yourself a playoff berth, but chances are strong you’ll earn a win along the way if you pull that off. For everybody else, it’s about scoring points: if there are any remaining spots not taken up by race winners, the top scorers fill them.
Survive and Advance
In NASCAR 25, each playoff series features multiple elimination rounds. Again, moving on is simple: if you’re still playoff eligible, anytime you win a race in a given round, you’re guaranteed to move on to the next one. Otherwise, you’ll need to stay above the playoff cut line on points to keep advancing. One bad race at the wrong time can be the end of your championship chase!
Top seeded playoff drivers tend to have the best chance of moving on. Seeding is set during the regular season through playoff points, which are earned through race wins, (if turned on in Career Mode settings) stage wins, and a bonus given to the regular season champion. Because a minimum of four drivers move on from each round, and no round is longer than three races, somebody will move on through points no matter what. Giving yourself a strong points cushion in the playoffs through regular season success will make your pursuit a little easier in the late races.
In the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and Xfinity Series, there are three playoff rounds; they start with 10 and 12 playoff drivers, respectively, before whittling down to eight and then four. The NASCAR Cup Series starts with 16 drivers and runs four playoff rounds that take the field down from 12, to eight, to four.
The Championship 4
For all series, the season ends at Phoenix Raceway with a single race to determine the champion. If you’re still working your way to the Cup Series, these final rounds can be the difference between earning enough Reputation Points to move onto the next series and sticking it out another year.
If you’re lucky enough to be one of the Championship 4 eligible for the title, the goal is simple. You’re racing the other three drivers straight up, and you need to finish ahead of all of them. Even if you don’t have a race-winning car, you’ll have a chance to take home the championship. Need some help monitoring the opposition? You can pull up the running order on your HUD throughout the race, and you’ll see your playoff opponents’ names in yellow instead of the usual white.
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