NASCAR 26 Dev Diary Ep. 02: Controllers and Car Handling

The second NASCAR 26 developer diary is out today. iRacing Studios developers Mike Bergh and Steve Reis cover NASCAR 26 controller settings and car handling in Episode 2, which dropped August 21 ahead of the September 18 release.

Also see:
▶ NASCAR 26 AMA: Everything Matt Lewis Told Us
▶ NASCAR 26 Force Feedback: What Changed for Wheel Users
▶ Watch Dev Diary Ep. 02 on YouTube

Bergh handles vehicle tuning at iRacing Studios. Reis is the team’s vehicle dynamics engineer. Neither appeared in Episode 1, which dropped July 22 and focused on dynamic track rubber buildup, the Chase mode playoff format, AI DNFs, and burnouts. That episode covered what features were in the game. Episode 2 is about how the game actually feels to drive.

Episode 1 set the tone for how iRacing Studios is approaching these videos. Rather than a feature reel, each one is a direct technical conversation from developers. Episode 2 follows the same format, with two people who worked specifically on vehicle tuning and dynamics explaining their decisions.

The video is available now at nascar26.com and on YouTube. The NASCAR gaming audience is predominantly on controller, playing on PlayStation and Xbox. Controller handling is one of the questions that matters most when a game makes meaningful changes to its physics model, and NASCAR 26 did exactly that.

Those changes are significant. The August Matt Lewis AMA confirmed the tire model received a major overhaul for NASCAR 26. Brakes are now easier to lock up than they were in NASCAR 25, and iRacing Studios says that was intentional. The goal was to close the gap between the game and how a real Cup Series car behaves under hard braking. For NASCAR 26 controller players, a tighter braking model means technique matters more than it did in the previous game.

The AMA also confirmed the centering spring is now adjustable in NASCAR 26. More wheel hardware is officially supported. The team ran more controller-specific testing during development than it did for NASCAR 25. Those details point to a development process that paid specific attention to non-wheel input. Episode 2 is where the developers who built the handling model explain what they built.

Force feedback for wheel users got a dedicated overhaul heading into this release, but the underlying physics changes that affect the force feedback response apply across all input devices. The gap between NASCAR 25 and NASCAR 26 in terms of driving feel and difficulty is real whether you are on a controller, a wheel, or anything else.

iRacing Studios developed both NASCAR 26 and the iRacing online sim platform. That background shows in how specific these developer diaries get. Putting the vehicle dynamics engineer and the tuner in the same episode to talk about controller and handling is the kind of content that does not normally surface this early in a game’s launch window.

For players coming into NASCAR 26 from NASCAR 25, the controller handling changes are worth understanding ahead of launch day. The driving feel is different, and getting familiar with the available configuration options before September 18 is worth the time. Both episodes are at the official NASCAR 26 videos page.

With four weeks left before the September 18 launch, at least one more developer diary is likely before release, though iRacing Studios has not announced a date for Episode 3. NASCAR 26 arrives September 18, 2026 on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox. Watch Dev Diary Ep. 02 at nascar26.com or on YouTube.