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No other sport has gained more popularity in the United States during the 1990s than NASCAR stock-car racing. Some may point to professional wrestling, but we'll save the debate for another day as to whether that's a sport. Hundreds of thousands of fans pack grandstands from coast-to-coast for more than 30 NASCAR Winston Cup Series races each year, and the television ratings are climbing like a Saturn 5 rocket leaving the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

So no one was surprised when EA Sports started another one of its popular sports franchises with the release of NASCAR 98 in fall 1997. It was one of the landmark racing games for PlayStation at the time, as it combined terrific playability with enough realism to satisfy fans of racing sims. NASCAR 98 spiked the needle on the fun meter, especially compared to the realistic but dry NASCAR Racing released by Sierra in 1996.

EA took a clear step backward with NASCAR 99. Shoddy pit stop AI, mediocre sound and long lapses of nose-to-tail racing with limited passing put the series into reverse. But with the release of NASCAR 2000, Stormfront Studios clearly has found the right setup and put this game back into gear, creating a very solid, fun game with limited problems. It's the best edition of EA Sports' NASCAR series. Read on to find out why.

With all apologies to Charles Dickens, the first two editions of the EA Sports' NASCAR series clearly were a case of "A Tale of Two Games." NASCAR 98 featured excellent bump-and-grind racing with passing all the way up to the checkered flag. But there were limited car setup options. It was a game for racers. NASCAR 99 featured great car setup options, adding such detail as spoiler angle, shock adjustment and weight jacking. But the racing was just plain lousy. There were too many stretches of simply going around and around, with no competitors within five car lengths of you front or rear. It was a tinkerer's delight.

EA Sports and Stormfront Studios took the smart approach when trying to keep balance between racing and realistic car setups in NASCAR 2000. They simply combined the best aspects of NASCAR 98 and 99 and rolled them into this year's game. For example, the racing is excellent, especially at the veteran difficulty level. The cars scrub speed in the corners - even when the gas pedal is glued to the floor -- and lose speed when tires wear. You'll really need to keep a clean line and feather the throttle in the corners to climb through the field. Otherwise a thicket of traffic, sometimes on both sides, will pass you. It's very reminiscent of NASCAR 98, which is a very good thing. Tight racing is back in this series.

But that racing wasn't returned at the expense of setups. NASCAR 2000 features the basic, sliding-scale setup system from NASCAR 98 for those who prefer to tinker with their car just enough to stay off the walls and let their driving do the rest. But for those who love adjusting bias, individual tire pressure, stagger and shocks, EA offers the advanced tuning options found in NASCAR 99. It's a brilliant solution that satisfies everyone. And the nice thing about the two-player game is that car-setup options are independent. One player can use the basic system to set up the car, while a true gearhead opponent can hit the advanced scale.

The new interactive pit stops also are a fun feature. Basically, once a player selects the type of service for the pit stop and the car stops in the stall, a horizontal ticker of symbols that correspond to the main buttons on the PlayStation controller stream in a box. Players try to hit the same button as the symbol in the center of the box as it streams past. Accurate pressing will quicken the stop; bad pressing will lengthen it. I liked this feature as it added challenge. But it is optional.

But not everything is perfect, starting with the damage model. One of the most common complaints about NASCAR 99 - and there were many - was the restrictive damage model. Cars fell out of races after making just a few slight bumps with another car or the wall. Very unrealistic and frustrating. As every NASCAR fan knows, rubbin' is racing, right? Well, EA and Stormfront went too far in the other direction in NASCAR 2000. The damage model is too permissive. Cars can slam against each other almost at will before incurring significant damage, as if this was a race for Hummers. And mild to moderate damage has little or no effect on a car's handling or speed. The collision physics also are unrealistic, as you can slam into the rear quarter panel of a car to spin around the car in a crude passing attempt - a tactic employed successfully this summer at Bristol by Dale Earnhardt against Terry Labonte - and nothing happens. The car in front just keeps on going.

Other niggling gameplay problems include unrealistic drafting, transitions from the inside apron to the banking on ovals and two-tire pit stops. The complaint about drafting comes with a catch. The drafting in NASCAR 99 was a joke. Every car was sucked up to cars ahead like a Hoovermatic was attached to the rear bumper. Thankfully, drafting strength and opponent strength is adjustable in NASCAR 2000. But drafting effectiveness remains the same at the half-mile bullring at Bristol as it does at the monstrous, high-speed, 2.66-mile Talladega tri-oval. Drafting means nothing at Bristol; it's everything at Talladega. This game doesn't capture the difference. Stock cars will spin if they are driven at speed from the steep banking of the turns on to the flat apron on the inside of the track. That doesn't happen in this game. But cars do spin after staying in the infield grass for too long. Props to EA. The pit-stop AI problems from NASCAR 99, in which you lost plenty of track time even during fuel-only stop, appear to be gone - for the most part. Two-tire stops still last around 16 seconds even when losing no time in the interactive pit stop feature. That's way too long.

But perhaps the biggest flaw in the gameplay is the lack of caution flags. There aren't nearly enough. I sat and watched a friend bang out 125 laps at the half-mile, close-contact Martinsville Speedway without a single caution flag. That's a joke. I drove in races in which I was eliminated in a big wreck, and no caution flag flew. What's worse, the wreckage just sat on the track for the rest of the race while some cars whizzed past and others slammed right into it, ending their race. Like the lack of penalty flags in NFL Gameday 2000 or the fatigue bug in NBA Live 99, this is a problem that must be fixed in the next edition.

This is a very deep game. Between the 18 realistic NASCAR tracks, five new fantasy road courses, 33 current NASCAR drivers and seven legendary drivers, there's plenty of versatility to keep NASCAR fans happy for a long time. The only glaring omission in the track selection is Daytona, because Sega has that license locked up. It would have been nice to see "The Monster Mile" at Dover, too. But just about every other track is there, including Homestead near Miami, a new venue on the 1999 schedule. The fantasy road courses are a nice touch, as EA Sports finally has found the right balance between reality and fantasy. NASCAR 98 had too many fantasy tracks and not enough real ones, and NASCAR 99 had no fantasy tracks. One of the common - and unfair - complaints about this game is that it features too much roundy-round racing. Well, that's NASCAR! But the five fantasy road courses add variety and defuse any complaints about boring racing.

All of the major drivers are present, including Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin, Bobby Labonte, Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott and rookies Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. There's also a Create A Driver mode which allows you to enter any name for your driver, pick one of six paint jobs for your car, and go racing either in a single race or season.

There are a variety of modes of play, including quick race, single race and championship season. The quick race mode thrusts a player right into a race without picking a track or car. Since most NASCAR fans are fiercely loyal to their favorite driver and like particular tracks, I don't see the purpose of this quick race mode, especially since it's so easy to navigate the menus and enter a single race.

Single race allows you to pick a driver and track and race against 15 other drivers. There's plenty of flexibility in this mode, starting with picking either rookie or veteran difficulty level. Rookie mode is easier and good for beginners. Once you pick your car, track and difficulty level, there still are a plethora of options. Race lengths can be selected at levels of 3, 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 percent lengths. The ability to pick even more precise race lengths would have been nice. There's also a short-race mode, which forces you to make one pit stop even in a race of just 10 laps or so. A nice feature carried over from NASCAR 99. Damage, yellow and black flags, breakdowns and pit-stop mode can be turned on or off. All of this adds up to a very deep game in single-race or championship mode.

Championship mode is the heart of the game. Players can select from one of six season lengths, ranging from all 24 tracks in the game, including fantasy courses, all 19 real tracks only, a half season of 10 races, a season of the five road courses, a season of five short tracks or a season of five superspeedways. This will keep drivers busy for hours and hours. Players can pick their 15 opponents in seasons or have the computer select randomly.

A superb new wrinkle is the addition of two-player season mode. You and a buddy can battle over an entire season for bragging rights. And you won't just race against yourselves. There will be six CPU cars on track, too, and you can qualify to earn your starting spot instead of automatically starting from the rear of the field like in NASCAR 98 and 99. Major applause for EA Sports and Stormfront. But there is one major problem in this mode. Eliminated human players are placed right after the last car running at the finish in the final standings, even if CPU cars exited the race after the human players did. That's a bug that must be fixed for NASCAR 2001.

Full, boxscore-style statistics are kept for every race, and points' system identical to that in NASCAR Winston Cup is used in the championship mode.

The "Race Against the King" feature also is new. Basically, it's a two-car, three-lap race at various venues between the player and "King" Richard Petty, the winningest NASCAR Winston Cup driver ever. It's a pretty stupid mode, as three-lap, one-on-one races lead to nothing but WWF on wheels. Sure, a bonus track is unlocked after beating Petty over the 10-race series, but it's not worth the time.

Very few complaints. The controls are very tight, especially with a Dual Shock analog controller. Sure, 3,600-pound cars aren't very nimble and don't handle like the water spiders otherwise known as Formula One cars. But the controls in NASCAR 2000 give you a pretty good feel for stock-car physics and handling.

Two configurations are featured for analog control, which is really the only way to go in a racing game. The left stick is always used for steering and the right for gas-brake. The only changes in configurations are with miscellaneous controls, such as shifting.

Four configurations are available for digital controllers, but didn't they go out of style at about the same time as Vanilla Ice? Drivers can modulate the throttle and brake in reality, and an analog controller allows you to do that. Digital doesn't. It's all off or all on. Very lame. Thank goodness EA Sports kept the total analog control option, unlike the bad decision to eliminate analog gas and braking in Need For Speed: High Stakes.

There is excellent Dual Shock support. The controller vibrates to varying degrees on every collision and even when rolling over the rumble strips on the inside edge of the track at Indianapolis and Phoenix. Steering wheels and the cult-classic neGcon twist controller are supported.

The menus are very clean and easy to read and navigate. Many display options are available, such as showing the track map, the best line to take around the racetrack and various split times around the track. The track map is useless except for road courses. It's not too hard to figure out where to turn on an oval. The best line feature is good for beginners, and the split times are for numbers freaks. Thankfully all of these options are just that - optional. Load times are minimal between screens, too.

My only major quibble is how the cars sway from side to side when turning or passing, especially on straightaways. Heavy g-force loads can cause a stock car to roll while passing in a turn but not on straightaways. The rolling and swaying wasn't apparent in either NASCAR 98 or 99, so I have no idea why EA and Stormfront added it this year.

First things first: The rearview mirror is back! For some inexplicable reason, a rearview mirror only was available in the in-car camera mode in NASCAR 99. Well, it's back and available in all seven camera modes in NASCAR 2000. EA Sports and Stormfront deserve props for listening to gamers and fixing this bad error from last year. All racing games should have rearview mirrors. Period.

Attention to detail makes this a pleasing game to look at. While the cars don't look that much different graphically from NASCAR 99 and don't approach anywhere near the fluidity and beauty of those in Gran Turismo, the attention to detail when it comes to sponsor logos, track signage and grandstand configuration is hard to beat.

All the cars in the game have accurate logos on them with a few exceptions. No alcohol and tobacco sponsors are present on cars or billboards, as the morality police continues to crack down on games. Like accurate logos of Winston and Budweiser are really going to coerce kids to smoke or drink after playing this game. I'm off the soapbox for now.

This game is packed with little graphical details. For example, rookie Tony Stewart's car carries the two horizontal yellow pieces of tape on the rear bumper carried by all NASCAR rookies. The wing-and-wheel logo is painted on the walls of the fabled Indianapolis Motor Speedway, just like in reality. A long row of recreational vehicles is lined up along the inside backstretch fence at many tracks, just like in reality. Reflector lights are present in the infield of Bristol, Charlotte and Richmond, tracks that have the Musco lighting system. Tracks show pavement seams, and cars leave skid marks on the track and paint marks on the wall after collisions. Black marks and even tire doughnuts are evident on some cars after a long day of banging fenders. Exaggerated sparks shoot from fenders after collisions, unrealistic but fun. One of the neatest graphical touches returns this year. When driving at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, you start the race in daylight. Dusk appears as the race progresses, and you finish under the lights. This mirrors the sky's progression during the Coca-Coca 600, which starts in the late afternoon on Memorial Day. Tracks also have properly scaled banking, a nice touch.

There are seven camera angles, ranging from front bumper to in-car to overhead, and everything in between. I thought the default angle was just fine, but sim freaks will stick to the in-car angle, which features a working tachometer. Very sweet.

The framerate is smooth, with no slowdown even with 16 cars on track. But all is not perfect. This game suffers from ferocious pop-up in the grandstands. The graphics stay consistent on the track, but huge grandstands pop up like mushrooms and draw in when approaching turns, even when practicing alone on the track. Maybe the limited memory and architecture of the PlayStation forced EA Sports to concentrate on keeping action smooth on the track and sacrifice the grandstands. It's the proper tradeoff, but it sure can be distracting at times.

The sound for NASCAR 2000 is improved over NASCAR 99, as a lot of the "hillybilly" flavor has been removed from the sound. This is fitting, as NASCAR has evolved from a Southern, backwoods sport into a national phenomenon.

The first example of this refinement of the sound can be found in the commentary of famed auto-racing television announcers Bob Jenkins and Benny Parsons. For the third consecutive edition of this game, Jenkins does a very solid job delivering tidbits of information during the race, including who's in the lead, who just gained bonus points, who's moving up through the field, where any incidents have occurred, etc. Solid stuff.

EA Sports, meanwhile, has cleaned up Parsons' act. His commentary was so limited, silly and repetitive last year that it was almost an embarrassment to his reputation as one of the best racing commentators in the business. It got really old to hear Benny say, "This track's got the best food" or "That car is hooked up like a rabbit on a dog track" at every track that you raced. That audio just made Parsons sound stupid, which he's not. This year Parsons delivers relevant information about a driver's career, track history and a few witty comments during the race. It's much more effective and less annoying.

The audio for spotters also is more refined. It got really annoying to hear a Dixie-fried voice scream, "Car high," "car low" over a 100-lap race in NASCAR 99. That audio still remains, but a more neutral, less Southern voice delivers it. The spotter also warns you of low fuel and worn tires. Spotters also utter phrases that real-life spotters say to their drivers, such as "How `ya doin' in there?" or "You're in third, keep it up," or "Bring it home to the checkered flag." Much more realistic than the cackling fool in NASCAR 99 who loved to spew "Ooh, that's gonna leave a mark," or "There goes the eggs," after a collision with the wall or another car.

The car audio is a mixed bag. Engine sounds are realistic, with a throaty roar when cranked up at full rpm. But the engine whines too much, revving too high and shifting much too sharply when climbing through the gears. Downshifting while entering the pits sounds realistic. Close, EA Sports, but not quite. But the collision sounds are excellent. The resounding thud of colliding 3,600-pound stock cars is accurate, and the scraping and crimping sheet metal that's emitted after hitting the wall or another car is spot-on.

This is the best effort of the NASCAR series, music-wise. Rippin' original tunes, many by John Popper of Blues Traveler, fill the game during breaks in the action and on menu and results screens. This harmonica-based rock captures the intensity of NASCAR racing while paying homage to NASCAR's Southern roots without being nearly as annoying as the endless loop of "Flirtin' With Disaster" by Molly Hatchet - excuse me while I get nauseous - that polluted NASCAR 98. Ah, but I do miss Stevie Ray Vaughan from NASCAR 99. Nothing's perfect, huh?

This is the best edition of EA Sports' NASCAR series because the best aspects of NASCAR 98 and 99 were combined into a very appealing package. This game will provide hours of entertaining racing fun, and racing in the veteran mode will prove that getting around an oval is a lot tougher and stimulating than most snobbish racing "purists" think.

But EA Sports still needs to tweak a few major gameplay issues if this game is to enter the rarefied air of sim-style racing classics such as Gran Turismo and Formula One: Championship Edition. NASCAR 2000 is a good game that could be much more realistic without watching the needle on the fun meter drop to zero.

Gamers who don't play racing games should steer clear of NASCAR 2000. It's just not unique or deep enough to leave tire tracks across all types of gamers like Gran Turismo. But this game still is a must for any NASCAR fan, and I think it's worth a look by any fan of racing games. It's a lot of fun, which is more than you can say for many racing games released these days.