Opening the box, we find that NASCAR Champions has many of the normal accouterments. There are dice. There are cards. There's a board. There are little plastic cars to put on the board. The cars have decals so that they can be made to match their real-world counterparts.

The premise behind NASCAR Champions is equally ordinary. Two one-lap races are held and prize money is awarded at the end of each race. The player who has amassed the most money at the end of the second race wins the game.

Each player chooses a car and every race has five cars in it (one of each color) regardless of the number of players. Starting order is determined randomly and the player whose car is in the pole position rolls the dice first. Cars move counter-clockwise around the board and play also passes in the counter-clockwise direction.

The fascinating part is in the actual game play. This game doesn't play like any other racing game I've ever seen.

The first time you see the dice rolled, you know there's something different at play. There are five dice, but each of them has the same number on every side! There's a '1' die, a '2' die, a '3' die, a '4' die and a '5' die. What's important about the dice is the color of the side that's rolled. For instance, if the '3' die showed red, then this would tell you to move the red car three spaces. If the '2' die showed green, then this would tell you to move the green car three spaces. Of the five dice rolled, the roller chooses three to keep and plays them in order, from lowest die to highest.

The die mechanic means that each player will move most every car at one time or another during the race.

Obviously, you'll want to move your car as far as possible as quickly as possible, but it's rare for three of your five dice to show the color of your car. This is where alliances and rivalries begin to form. It's perfectly legal to use your roll to move another player's car ahead, or into a position from which they'll be blocked from advancing, or even into a position from which they'll block another player.

Now there are five cars in every race and as every gamer knows, regular dice have six sides. If each color appears on one side of each die, then what's the sixth side for? The sixth side shows a checkered flag. When the roller keeps a die that shows the checkered flag, he draws a card from the Checkered Flag deck, and follows the directions on the card.

Checkered Flags aren't the only type of cards that come with NASCAR Champions, however. The cards that come with the game actually come in four flavors:

1. There are seven Driver cards with biographical information about the real-world driver of each car. Driver cards have no effect on game play.
2. There are five Gear Shift cards. Each player receives one of these, in their color. These allow each player to reroll the dice once per race. Turning the card face down signifies that they have done so.
3. There are five Sponsor cards which give each player a bonus if the car they're sponsoring finishes a race in the top three. Each player randomly receives one of these when the first car has completed the first one-third of the race.
4. There is an entire deck of Checkered Flag cards which can modify the conditions of the race. Some Checkered Flag cards cause one or more of the cars to move or spin out. Others make the player who draws them a sponsor of one of the cars in the race.

Of all of these, the sponsor cards are the most delightful because they actively encourage NASCAR Champions something that most every other racing game lacks. They encourage player interaction. Alliances quickly form when players realize that they'll get paid for their neighbor's victory.

So what about the bad? Well, there are two major complaints.

Firstly, the suggested retail price of $30.50 is a bit pricey. However, Funagain's price brings it down within the bounds of reason.

Secondly, only five players may participate at one time, but for licensing reasons, there are seven cars and two pairs are the same color. This means that two players will frequently want the same color but will be forced to compromise. It would have been nice if this repetition of colors didn't exist.

However, even after taking these complaints into account, NASCAR Champions is still a real sleeper; a little-known gem in the board game world. If you like racing games and if you give it a chance, then you can be sure you won't regret it.