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Most team owners would reply. Asking other IndyCar team owners the cost of a car is like asking a lady her age. The cost of a racing car is a well-guarded secret. This is not only due to the competition but also because of governing body’s spending regulations. Very few journalists have had a peek at the balance sheet of a team owner.
To get an idea of the cost of an IndyCar, it is best to go back to the 2018 season. In 2020 reporters barely had a chance to look at the costs of a race car because of the pandemic. IndyCar has started full swing in 2021 with a few restrictions.
It is certain though, that IndyCar racing is much cheaper than F1 racing, the cost of which will run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
Nevertheless, IndyCar racing doesn’t come cheap. If you feel like racing in the Indy500 be prepared to shell out at least $3 million and pray that your car isn’t involved in a severe crash. If there is an accident, the costs could go up by $200,000 depending on the severity of the crash.
And yeah, be prepared to lose your investment.
The 2020 Indy500 winner, Takuma Sato was awarded $1,370,500. James Davison, who came in 33rd and last was awarded $100,000. It is difficult to recover your investment with prize money alone even if you race throughout the season.
And don’t think of recovering your money unless you have good sponsors backing you.
You’ll need at least five months to prepare for the IndyCar season which generally begins in April/May. An engine and a chassis do not a car make. There are many other components you will have to source, test and purchase.
You have to have a Captain, someone who knows the nuts and bolts of the IndyCar building and Indy racing.
The Captain will know where to book garage space to work on the car and whom to hire as mechanics and helpers. That will be your crew.
He will know the rule book and tell you where to source fire suits, the electronics and the brake system.
He is the one to show you the way to a win if you are to be successful even in one race.
Even getting into IndyCar racing is difficult. The series will first inquire with all the car component suppliers before considering you as one of the competitors. They will want you to make a downpayment to Honda or Chevy for an engine.
Then there is Dallara for the chassis and Firestone for the tires. If you have made down payments to the suppliers, congratulations, you have one foot in the door.
You are starting from scratch. That means you will have to shell out for an IndyCar team. The cost of building a team will be about $3 million. The purse for an IndyCar 500 race is $13.2 million.
That money is distributed among all the participants of the race.
Find a good Captain.
He will know where to buy the right equipment. Buying the best equipment does not mean you are done. What you make of the equipment matters. Your captain will know that. You will have to pay the captain and pay him good.
Your most important investment, the Captain, will expect to be paid in the region of $75,000 or more for five months beginning January.
You will need a driver who is among the best as well as one who can get along with people in the crew. Your team’s popularity will depend on who is behind the wheel of the car. A driver with a good reputation could also bring along sponsors with him. Moreover, crew members are also keen to join a team with a good driver.
Having an efficient team manager and an accomplished driver is halfway to having a good IndyCar 500 race.
The best drivers will be aligned with the more reputable teams that have money to splash around. Look out for veterans. But a savvy IndyCar 500 driver won’t come cheap.
You’d be lucky to close a deal with an affable driver for $500,000.
You are now halfway to having a memorable race and you have spent $575,000 of your budget.
This is where the Captain comes into play. He will advise you where and how to buy a car chassis, an engine, hire tires for a month and a suitable workshop to assemble and maintain the car. He will also advise you on what crew you need and help you recruit them.
To even get a licence to compete in an IndyCar race you have to complete the above formalities. The Indy car regulations state that to be approved, the “entrant’s competitive and business viability will be assessed to determine whether to approve and issue the license.”
This includes (a) a purchase or lease agreement with an approved engine manufacturer that has been producing the same engine for years; (b) a purchase or lease agreement for a workshop, and (c) employment of key personnel including a team manager, a driver, a chief mechanic and support crew.
IndyCar has given contestants a choice between two engine manufacturers: Honda and Chevrolet. These are IndyCar’s OEM partners. You can either lease the engines on a short-month lease or a full-month lease. Both manufacturers try and outdo each other year in and year out for speed.
The decision on which engine to choose is best left to the Team Manager and the Technical Director.
Entrants are allotted two engines for a full-month lease programme by either company. The second engine is to be used on carb days. The same engine has to be used both for the qualifying and the race. One engine program, a full-month one, will set you back another $225,000. (At least one engine per program is required, take note.) One engine lease is cheaper at $125,000, but one wouldn’t want to get stuck with a stalled engine before the qualifying begins.
If you pay $225,000 for a full-month lease programme, you have now spent $800,000 from your kitty for an IndyCar team.
Firestone is the OEM for tires for IndyCar. They lease 33 sets of tires to racing teams a month. No IndyCar suppliers reveal the prices to outsiders. But expect the leased tires to cost you $100,000 a month.
Just owning an IndyCar isn’t enough. Tires alone will cost you more than $1 million over a season. Firestone supplies different tires for ovals, street courses and road courses. They also have softer tires which allow for quick cornering but wear out faster. Your expenditure has now risen to $900,000.
Racing in Indy, one doesn’t have many choices in chassis suppliers as Dallara DW12 is the only approved chassis by Indy. Second-hand chassis (from other IndyCar teams) are available at a marginally lower price than new chassis. A second-hand chassis will cost around &300,000. If you opt for a new chassis, you will have to pay $350,000.
That will bring you spending up to $1,250,000.
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Indianapolis is the racing capital of the world. Various series conduct races in Indianapolis and there is no dearth of workshops. Instead of buying a shop, you can lease a garage space which saves you quite a bunch.
You will get a sizeable garage space for a rent of $4,000 per month. Assuming you will want the space for a couple of months, you will spend $8,000 on the garage space. Your expenditure so far will come to 1,258,000.
IndyCar entrants are charged a fee of $2,325 which is comprehensive and includes 25 team credentials. You will have to pay another $21,000 for your garage space for a month, fuel services, race modes, parking, scoring etc. you have to do all these things in tandem. If you have a good Team Manager, he will guide you through the lanes.
By now you have shelled out $1,279,000 of your budget.
IndyCar crew consists of several people, each specialised in their task. They are dedicated to the team they choose to work for. But these people will have to work 12 to 14 hours per day on weekends and holidays. Often you will have to grab crews from other teams. The crew will expect to be paid higher salaries. Not many people will take one or two months off from their regular paying jobs.
The job of recruiting the crew is best left to the Team Manager. H will call on past contacts and enrol the most suitable people for the job. The crew will handle the most pit stops in any race in any other series. They will refuel the car and change tires and strive to do it faster than the competitors.
Most of the crew want to align with winners because it will stand them good in their future careers.
That said, you will need the following people in the crew:
2 nos will cost $$24,000 for 8weeksThe above personnel will cost you $ 250,200 raising your expenditure to $1,529,200.
Many used components are available for sale in shops around Indianapolis. But it is best to avoid them because one doesn’t know which car they came from. It is best to bank on new components for a car on which you have spent more than a million and a half dollars.
If it is not possible to find a spare in the market, do by all means lease or buy a part from another team.
The following will be the parts that you will need:
Now it is time to look at the accommodation for you and the crew.
Your car is ready and all set to go. But you can’t let the driver get into the cockpit before thoroughly testing the car. The driver will want to spend time in a simulator before he attempts to drive the car. Here’s what you will spend on testing:
You have spent a further 1,241,800 on components and testing bringing the total cost to you so far to $2,771,000
There is one eventuality which you have to set aside money for and that is a crash repair fund.
With a crowded field of 33 racers, there is every possibility of a crash. You will have to set aside 200,000 for crash repairs.
Having spent time and effort to race on the big day, you deserve to have fun. Enjoy yourself. It is not every day that someone invests $3 million in a single event. But then, it is not every day that 300,000 spectators cram into an arena to watch a contest.
By the end of the race, you will join an exclusive group of people who have participated in the Indy 500.
For more racing action, visit NASCAR Chronicle.
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Firestone Racing is here to help you brush up on your NTT INDYCAR® SERIES basics so you're not left in the dust
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Pushing speeds of over 230 mph, Indy cars feature open cockpits, exceptionally aerodynamic design and high-performance Firestone Firehawk™ tires.
Innovation, performance, and advanced technology is also designed and built into the tires. Ever since Ray Harroun's Firestone-equipped Marmon Wasp won the inaugural Indianapolis 500® in 1911, Firestone has worked to constantly evolve race tire technology and has been the sole supplier of tires for the NTT INDYCAR® SERIES since 2000.
NTT INDYCAR® SERIES cars are mechanical and aerodynamic works of art, capable of astounding performance and speed. Each car is configured specifically for the type of track it will drive on, and everything is adjustable, including the high-performance Firestone Firehawk tires. So fine-tuning the car is as integral to success as the driver's race craft.
Firestone Firehawk race tires are specifically engineered for the type of course they'll be used on.
Oval tracks use just one type of tire, while road and street tracks can use all three types - primary, alternate and rain.
PRIMARY BLACK The black sidewall primary Firestone race tires offer a competitive balance between speed, cornering, and durability. Firehawk primary tires are used on all three types of track.
ALTERNATE RED Visually differentiated by red sidewalls, Firestone alternate tires have a softer compound than primary tires, allowing for faster speeds and better cornering, but quicker wear. Alternate tires are used on road and street tracks only.
RAIN These grey sidewall Firestone race tires were developed for wet conditions and use a grooved tread pattern that improves grip, control and helps prevent hydroplaning. Rain tires are used on road and street courses only, as the NTT INDYCAR® SERIES will not run oval races if conditions are wet.
In order to help protect them from the potential dangers associated with intense, high-speed racing, NTT INDYCAR® SERIES drivers wear multiple pieces of high-tech safety equipment.
Learn more about the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Driver Equipment
The NTT INDYCAR® SERIES features three basic types of courses throughout the season.
STREET A circuit made up of closed-off public streets, roads, and even airport runways in a city or town. Check out the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach for examples of street courses.
ROAD This circuit is similar to street tracks but takes place in a dedicated racing facility rather than existing public streets. See the Baber Motorsports Park and the Road America for examples of road tracks.
OVAL A circuit with banked turns and unique variances in shape, oval tracks feature the highest speeds due to their wide-open nature.
The Indianapolis 500® is by far the most famous oval in motorsports. See the Iowa Speedway for another example.
A driver's qualification run determines their starting order in a race. Depending on the type of race circuit, qualifying can work in different ways.
OVAL Qualification is determined by the combined time for two consecutive timed laps.
STREET & ROAD Qualification is broken into segments. The top finishers advance to the next round, while the remaining drivers occupy later positions. The Firestone Fast Six™ are the six cars that make it to the final segment.
INDIANAPOLIS 500 The Indianapolis 500 has its own unique set of rules for qualifying, different from those found on other oval circuits
For complete qualification rules, including those specific to the Indianapolis 500 and Iowa Speedway, read more here.
Drivers pull into the pit box during races to refuel, replace their Firestone tires as needed, or have any necessary mechanical adjustments or repairs done on their car. Teamwork and perfect timing is key to a successful pit stop so the driver can be back on the track in as little time as possible.
During races, NTT INDYCAR® SERIES officials use a variety of flags to denote safety commands and instructions to the drivers.
Now that Firestone has equipped you with the NTT INDYCAR® SERIES basics you need to talk the talk, you can use your newfound knowledge to own the track.
Get ready for the green flag to drop!
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Vladimir Gavrilov
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
1089
Category: Service Auto
With the onset of spring, motorists want to quickly install summer wheels, which are noticeably superior to winter ones in terms of dynamic characteristics. Cars with summer tires brake better, drive more confidently and give more pleasure from sports driving. This is especially noticeable with low-profile tires worn on large-diameter alloy wheels. However, in the off-season, it is better to forget about such tires and opt for high-profile wheels. Why?
Summer tires can be divided into two large groups.
These are comfortable tires for everyday driving and tough sports tires with a low profile. The latter are designed exclusively for smooth roads, but they hardly endure the blows on the pits that are found in abundance on spring roads. But this is far from their only shortcoming.
For example, passenger cars often have 185/65 R15 wheels. The numbers on the tire mean the following: 185 - tire profile width in mm; 65 - percentage of profile height to width; R - radial type of construction; 15 - bore diameter in inches. Thus, the height of the wheel assembly and with the tire inflated to standard pressure is approximately 570 mm, and the height of the tire is approximately 120 mm.
When the car is fitted with 205/50 R17 tires, this means that the wheel will also be 570 mm in diameter, but its profile will be only 102 mm high. Thus, the damping properties of the wheel will be less. It absorbs shocks from bumps and dents worse. The energy first passes through the tread and sidewall of the tire, crushes it, and then is redistributed in waves to the rim of the disc, causing it to vibrate.
Therefore, riding on low-profile tires is less comfortable and dangerous for the suspension.
The larger the wheel, the wider it is. As a result, the mass of the disk and the load on wheel bearings, silent blocks, levers and other chassis elements increase. Unsprung masses react to impacts on bumps, vibrations are poorly damped by the tire and hit rubber-metal hinges and levers. Unsprung masses can cause resonant vibrations that the suspension is not designed for. As a result, its resource is reduced.
The low profile tire differs not only in height but also in width. The contact patch of such a wheel assembly is strikingly larger, which means that the contact area of rubber with asphalt increases and handling improves. But the wider the tire, the less space is left in the wheel arches. As a result, wide tires create parasitic aerodynamic noise in the wheel arches. When driving at high speeds, a low-frequency dull noise occurs, which puts pressure on the driver and passengers.
The comfortable acoustic environment inside the cabin suffers, especially when driving on bad roads with a lot of surface damage to the asphalt pavement.
Therefore, you should not hurry with low-profile sports tires and alloy wheels in the spring. Standard tires are better for bad roads. The high profile absorbs impact energy better from bumps and helps protect the suspension components from abnormal loads.
In addition, for traffic safety, it is recommended to use metal discs during difficult climatic periods, which can absorb energy and deform. Thus, they protect not only the suspension, but also expensive tires from the formation of hernias and even a sidewall breakthrough.
Cast wheels can't do that. Their rim does not bend, but dents with a change in the structure of the light alloy. To return the form during repairs, craftsmen use a complex rolling technology that requires special equipment. The disk is heated to a plastic state and the material is returned to its place along the profile on a special machine.
It does not always turn out well, because light alloys often crack on impact and these cracks do not weld when rolled.
Low-profile tires with beautiful alloy rims are best saved for mid-June, when the road services have already completed the current patching on most country roads. Then the risk of damaging expensive tires will be significantly reduced.
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If modern racing arcades and car simulators no longer give you such pleasure as before, perhaps this is the right time to return to the timeless classics? And to make this journey into the past comfortable and bring you a lot of new emotions mixed with nostalgic feelings, it’s not a sin to use the services of modders from the fan community who have been supporting the life of their favorite game for years.
Perhaps the fact that Need for Speed is a cult video game series is not worth mentioning once again.
Even with its precarious position in recent years, it is still the most recognizable name in the arcade racing genre. For many modern gamers, this was the first racing game in their lives.
From the first license plates of the mid-90s to all sorts of themed spin-offs, including the hit Underground, these masterpieces have shaped the minds of generations of motorists, both in video games and in life. However, for each of us, only one game in the entire rich history of Need for Speed can be considered the most beloved, and for many, Most Wanted has become such. When it seemed that nothing could be cooler than Underground 2, it appeared like a bolt from the blue and won the hearts of gamers around the world.
Looking back, especially after the unsuccessful restart attempt in 2012, many people begin to remember this game with increasing warmth, wanting to return to that fun and serene time. So maybe stop dreaming and it's time to act!? In the world of illegal street racing, it is not customary to hesitate, otherwise you will be left far behind everyone, or even fall into the tenacious paws of restless police officers.
It's time to get behind the wheel of your battered but still frisky Toyota Supra again, turn on the nitrous oxide, and wake up everyone in the area by chasing the cops through the night streets of Rockport!
If you still can't make up your mind, here are some fantastic Need for Speed: Most Wanted mods that will finally convince you to go on this adrenaline-filled adventure and remember the good old days.
Most Wanted was probably the most cinematic installment in the series when it was released in 2005. Riding on a wave of popular love for the Underground and a general obsession with street racing after the resounding success of the films from the Fast and the Furious franchise, this next spin-off came at just the right time and hit the mark with its crime plot and Hollywood-style cut scenes with professional actors.
The Neural 1080p Enhanced Cutscene mod, you guessed it, enhances all in-game cutscenes to 1080p resolution, enhancing anti-aliasing and sharpening, which creates a unique nostalgic effect that, without detracting from its former charm and without hiding the age of the cutscenes, makes they look as good as they are preserved in our memories.
If these changes seem insignificant to you, take a look at what these videos actually looked like in 2005.
Memory is a strange thing, isn't it? But thanks to these modifications, we can again enjoy the scenes of intimate conversations with Sgt. Cross, without risking ruining our eyesight, trying to at least make out something in these muddy shots.
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Of course, Rockport City is best to ride at night. Largely because during the day you see some of the shortcomings of this city, which raise certain questions, the answers to which break your immersion in the atmosphere of street racing. With all the mess you and the cops make every night, the next day the pavement doesn't have to look like it's just been changed.
Damaged Roads retextures roads with natural signs of erosion and physical impact, including cracks, faded markings and tire marks. But if the author of the mod had limited himself to this, he would hardly have made it to our list.
In addition to all these improvements, the modification itself is made in the autumn style, with a qualitative update of the textures of not only roads, but also trees, which makes the atmosphere of the game more fresh, picturesque and natural.
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Colored Decals are simple and straightforward, but that doesn't make this mod any less cool and important. Yes, it just adds new colored stickers to the game. However, this is not only the very first mod of its kind for the original version of Most Wanted, it still remains the highest quality and most elaborate of all that have been created to date.
The authors worked so hard when recreating these brand logos of world brands and just popular joke car stickers that the results of their work are difficult to distinguish from reality. And this is still a game of 2005, we remind you!
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This mod replaces the boring monochrome photos of the characters with their color versions, also adding atmospheric landscapes to the background, reflecting the personalities and characters of the racers.
As in the case of cutscenes, these changes, of course, will not affect the gameplay in any way, but will make your time in the game more enjoyable, without violating the original atmosphere, but only slightly complementing and embellishing it.
Also, this is also the first full mod for Most Wanted that changes this aspect of the game, so please treat it with respect.
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This mod removes the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8 from the game, which may anger fans of this iconic Japanese car. But they are unlikely to grieve for a long time when they see what has come to replace her.
TheThunder Master is a futuristic concept car with very high power and speed, which unfortunately only exists in virtual prototype format, unlike all other cars in the game. However, this only makes it an even more unique and desirable gift for every self-respecting street racer. And thanks to this modification, now you have it.
Rumor has it that it comes with a machine gun and rockets, but those are just rumors, right?
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If you want to go back to Most Wanted, only to drive the coolest cars in the game and upgrade them to an incredible level in the workshop, then you will have to work hard for this.
The most coveted copies will only be available after winning certain races, plus a considerable amount of money will have to be paid for customizing them.
Luckily, thanks to the NFS Perfect Save mod, you don't have to spend your time playing through the game again to get access to all the fun stuff. Just load this save with all blacklisted cars unlocked and a tidy sum in your account and have fun!
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This is not just another mod with a few improvements - it's a massive piece of work that brings huge changes to the chases, cars, textures, gameplay, all with the goal of transforming Most Wanted from pure entertainment arcade racing in a realistic car simulator.
To make you understand how serious everything is: there are not even cars newer than 2005, which even the original game sins, not to mention most of the modifications.
In addition, graphics, video and music have been updated to higher quality, and many graphical bugs have been fixed.
But the most important change, which actually should bring the infantile mood of Need for Speed as close as possible to the harsh reality, is that the performance and physics of the cars have been completely redesigned for maximum realism.
EA had wrong data for many cars: too much power, wrong weight shift, drag coefficient, torque boost curve, etc. Now, with some especially frisky sports cars, it will be much more difficult to control at high speed, as it, in fact, should be.
Last but not least, nitrous oxide is no longer replenished like magic, so use it wisely.
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But if you don't care about authenticity and you don't mind driving modern cars in your favorite childhood game, then this mod is just for you. Especially if you are a Porsche fan.
Despite the vague name, NFSMW Save Game 2022 serves only one good purpose - to give you the opportunity to ride the divine 2022 Porsche 718 Cayman S at least in video game format.
Just load a save in which this beast is already in your garage and ready for battle, and you will receive a bonus of 1.3 million to your account. Not a bad deal, right?
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Better Traffic Diversity brings new variety to Rockport's traffic by adding more vehicles to the spawn system.
In addition, it makes the driving pattern, as well as the model of the behavior of cars on the road, more realistic. For example, the garbage truck now spawns everywhere except on the highway. Before that, it could only be seen in the city center and in one of the industrial zones. It feels like the people of Rockport, for some unknown reason, don't really like it when someone cleans up their trash. Now everything will finally fall into place and the local roads will be busier, which, accordingly, will make police chases in the city more exciting and dynamic.
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This add-on for NFS: Most Wanted is designed to improve gameplay and add new general customization options.
In general, RockportEd changes a lot of things at once in different aspects of the game, so here are some of the most important innovations:
For this mod to work correctly, you will need a special ASI Loader and the MirrorHook utility.
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Over the past 15+ years, a huge number of different mods have been released for Most Wanted, but most of them are monotonous and pale. AUTUMN HotPursuit was created specifically to remind you how beautiful the world can be in the classic Need for Speed games.
This is the maximum possible visual improvement of the game without performance loss and serious FPS drops.
However, for this 2005 game to perform at its best, you'll need a computer much newer than its release date.
Thanks to the efforts of the author of this great mod, most of the textures in the game have been improved and reworked, and dynamic lighting has been changed, which, combined with some yellowing foliage, immerses us in a cozy atmosphere of early autumn.
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And if you are already fed up with the rainy autumn weather outside the window and would like to escape to some warm sunny place for a while, then, thanks to the Summer Retexture Mod, NFS can become such a place for you: Most Wanted.
This is a very beautiful and atmospheric mod that turns Rockport into a real summer resort with fragrant nature and bright scorching sun. It's hard to explain how the author did it, but you can almost feel the warm June breeze as you race down the local country highway in your Porsche 9.11 turbo.
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Next in line is, it would seem, another retexture mod, but not everything is so simple.
With several fixes and texture improvements, this add-on aims to change a few very specific details in Most Wanted.
Fixes and Improvements for Textures fixes some grammatical errors on signs and signage (it happens), improves the appearance of tires, corrects the overly bright color of some environmental elements on the sides, and even removes the ugly, spoiling all the immersion trademark sign on the logos of famous brands.
In other words, the author of this mod decided to immediately get rid of all those little things that annoyed him in his favorite game. So now, we can say that Most Wanted does not have a single flaw.
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Need for Speed Most Wanted Overhaul is aimed at increasing the difficulty of completing the career mode. This means more difficult chases, races, more enemies (from 4 to 11), traffic saturation, as well as more career challenges that must be completed in order to be able to compete with bosses.
In addition, the cash race mode has been completely redesigned. Cash rewards for all non-boss challenges have been balanced. The amount you receive directly depends on the difficulty of the race. Difficulty is determined by the length of the track, the number of laps, the presence of police officers, and the type of race. In other words, competitions that take more time and effort to win now bring in more money than others. Of course, without a large-scale renewal of the fleet, it also could not do here.
By the way, to change the traffic system here uses the Better Traffic Diversity mod mentioned earlier, so you can not download it separately and enjoy the busy roads of Rockport in combination with other fantastic features that are available in this modification.
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Yes, the retexture mod also completes our list, and this makes some sense, given that Most Wanted will soon be celebrating its 20th anniversary, and the appearance of this well-deserved classics would do well to update for such a significant date.
