And giving the user control over his own destiny makes the experience more engrossing. The car setup screen allows you to tweak the settings and get the most out of your car. The practice mode is an unlimited practice session which proves valuable to assess the settings. The Happy Hour is just another practice session but with the full grid on the track. This gives you the opportunity to test your settings against live competition before the actual race.
Some tracks require a great detail of setup.
If you go into the race with the default setup, you may find that you lose seconds per lap. It's frustrating, but it gives you a sense of a real race weekend. And each track requires a unique setup. Some of the ovals have higher banking and the weight balance has to be shifted. Once you start racing, it's you against 15 other drivers.