Racing Your Car

The game tells you to keep it in the green, meaning the tachometer. Green when launch and green for each shift. Another hint on the wait screen says avoid wheel spin. But if you keep it in the green, many cars will be spinning their tires slowing down your times. So here's some things I've learned about racing cars. You don't have to worry about launching with most races. But Showdowns and Live Races require you hit NOS/Launch button to launch your car. These are some methods when launching manually.

Wheels Spinning(Orange Icon)

If you're lucky enough or good enough to launch perfectly, you usually launch without wheels spin. That's the best way to prevent wheel spin during  launch. While it takes time and practice to launch perfectly, there are ways to prevent wheel spin if you miss the mark. This only really works with certain cars and they should have parts making them faster. If you miss the mark and your tires are spinning, shift. Shift until you're no longer spinning the wheels. Some cars this works really great with. And some cars not so much. It does help to have the car improved so you can launch in like 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th gear depending on the car.

Perfect Launch

There are a few methods when launching your car. One is butterflying the throttle over the green zone before launching and hoping you can hit green or hold green until launch. But each car throttles differently and some are really hard to hold on green.

Butterfly Throttle Over the Green Before Launch

The other method is to hold the throttle and red line, release throttle and let the throttle just long enough for the needle to reach the green as the race starts, then hit launch at start. This is different for nearly every car as the green zone is different and cars excel and decel differently. During the countdown there are three dots for each number as it counts down to the race. Watch the dots too help determine how long it takes your car to decel from red line to the green zone.

Red Lining Before Start

Another method would be the opposite as red lining. Don't hold throttle until right before launch. You need to learn the timing from no throttle to the green zone. Same as before, watch the dots during the countdown to help perfect your timing 

The last method is early launch. Just hit launch before the countdown. This will launch you the second it the race starts. The bad part is most cars will spin the wheels this way. Some cars launch real well this way, but most do not

Below are a couple videos showing a few methods. I did not make these videos but I hope it helps understand.