NASCAR 15 Trophy Guide & Road Map

NASCAR 15
NASCAR 15 Trophy Guide

Estimated trophy difficulty: 3/10 (Platinum Difficulty Rating)
Trophy Breakdown: 29 (17, 8, 3, 1)
Online trophies: 8 (4, 3, 1)
Approximate amount of time to Platinum: 20-25hrs (Estimated Time to Platinum)
Minimum number of playthroughs: 2+
Number of missable trophies: 0
Glitched trophies: 0
Does difficulty affect trophies?: Yes, see Champion Driver
Do trophies stack?: No
Do cheat codes disable trophies?: No, there is a money cheat but it doesn't disable any trophies.

Welcome to my trophy guide for NASCAR '15. This is the sixth game in the series licensed by NASCAR and is pretty much a carbon copy of NASCAR '14 and I mean that literally, as aside from the striking similarities in-game, the trophy list and the requirements for said trophies has been lifted from '14 and imported directly to '15. The only tweak is that 4 trophies didn't make it to this year's list and that's a blessing to a Platinum enthusiast, because one of them would have required an extra playthrough and the other three were time attack related and by far the most difficult trophies from last year. Thanks to this, the trophy difficulty has taken a dive as has the time it takes to get 100% and with a strategy supplied for completing a season in first on 90% difficulty there's very little to worry about. Good luck with the Platinum and I hope you like the guide.

Step 1 - Career Mode on 90% Difficulty

You will complete a full season in Career Mode on 90% difficulty here. When I played the previous years game I found a cool way to break this difficulty so read Champion Driver for more info. You will also unlock a bunch of other trophies in this step as well relating to completing a season in career mode and possibly a couple of misc ones along the way but make sure that one of those is Fully Sponsored or you may have to do a few more races in a new season to round the rest of the sponsors up.

Step 2 - Single Season/Chase Mode

With Career Mode down and out, you need to complete another full season but this time in Single Season Mode. As opposed to using the same trick for Champion Driver however, I would recommend knocking down the difficulty to 0% and actually completing most of the races to work off the requirements for Big Mover. Once you take care of this then begin a new single season but this time choose Chase Mode, skipping the first 28 events and racing the last 10. This should do you as far as competitive racing is concerned.

Step 3 - Online

Just like last year you only need to be signed into PSN to unlock all multiplayer trophies, that is to say that every trophy can be unlocked by playing solo. Online is mostly just grinding races and there's no shortcuts to reach the 100 participated races for Online Master so you'll need to bed in for the long haul.

Step 4 - Sweep Up

There shouldn't be much left now and as the developers neglected to include any of the previous season highlights it's a case of rounding up the sort of trophies you don't unlock unless you are specifically trying for them. Find whatever you haven't unlocked so far for a detailed description to cap off your Platinum.

[PST Would Like to Thank smartbomb for this Roadmap]

Platinum

Obtain all the other Trophies.
Awarded for obtaining every other trophy. Congrats!
Running Flat

Make it to pit road with a flat tire

From the Single Player menu, select a race on any wide track (I used Daytona) as any driver but when you come to apply the race settings, turn off "Flags", set the tire damage to x4 and ensure damage is set to either Tyres, Brakes and Engine or Full. Once the race begins, pause the game and select Driver Assists where you can alter various settings, scroll down to 'TC and SC Assist ' and set it to 'OFF'. Now simply accelerate while jamming to the left or right to "donut" the car into a wheelspin. Maintain this until the rear tires blow, then simply make it to the pits for your trophy to unlock.
Use the Force

Win a race with the HUD turned off

In order to earn this trophy, you must win a race with every HUD option set to 'Off'. As you cannot pre-select this as a setting before a race you have to do so once you are actually in a race and because of this, the one you set it to 'Off' will not count as you technically had them active to begin with. However, it will save this as a preference and they will all be off at the beginning of every race there after until you set it back on again.

I recommend for you to save this for the Online section. The HUD is pretty redundant except for the damage indicators and fuel gauge which are critical in long races but on a single lap solo race they don't matter at all.
Expert Racer

Start and finish a race without any driving assists

You can turn off driver assists on any pre-race menu, just change the setting to 'Not Allowed' and proceed to race. Your finishing place won't matter, you just need to complete the race. I recommend on leaving this one for the online section and choosing a short oval track like Bristol with the minimum number of laps. Don't hold down on the accelerator from the launch or you will spin out, I recommend gently holding down about half way and gently coasting around the track until you finish the race. Your trophy will unlock soon after you finish.
Big Mover

Pass a total of 250 cars
This should come naturally over the course of playing Career Mode, especially if you skip qualifying. This is cumulative of course and is clocked up over all races you compete in, including passing the same car multiple times and lapping cars, really any instance of your car moving in front of another one counts towards the total.
Spice of Life

Drive as 10 different drivers
(1)
This would have been ideal to leave for the online races grind, but for some unknown reason it refuses to unlock unless the races are done offline in SP mode. Taking that into account, it rules out Career Mode as well as you will have to be the same driver throughout so that leaves Single Races. On the upside however, you can quit out of the race literally seconds after the race begins and it will register the use of the driver. Complete the races you create if you wish to do so but either way you do this, the trophy will unlock once you complete/retire from race number 10.
Perfect Weekend

Win a race after Qualifying first and leading the most laps
This should come quite soon into your first run at Season Mode with the exception of Event #1 and #13. All you need to do is skip to qualifying and come first (remember you can restart if you don't qualify in pole) and skip to race day. When you get going, give the chasing pack the slip on the first turn and break away to lead going into Lap 2, now just sustain your lead which will be a piece of cake with the A.I on 0%, your trophy will unlock once you progress through to the post-race loading screen.
Engineer

Run a custom tuning setup in a race

Before you launch a race, the very last screen you are able to change any settings in is the Infield Garage. On this screen, select 'Tuning' and 'Create new Setup'. From here, choose anything at all and make a single tiny adjustment to any part and back out, giving it a name and making sure you save it. Now you can Apply it by going back to the 'Tuning' menu and selecting to 'Apply Setup', simply find your creation by scrolling through the options to find the one you named and hit 'Accept'. Now just enter any race and your trophy will unlock immediately.
Lucky Dog

Be the Lucky Dog driver in a race
To be the "Lucky Dog" in a race you will need to be a lap down then benefit from a crash severe enough to warrant a yellow flag, that importantly is not your fault. This will bring out the pace car and allow you to catch up from being a lap down and therefore be the 'Lucky Dog'. You can do this in any single player race that you like, set the A.I to 0% and just coast around the track from the green light and allow the pack to lap you then start to catch up. Once you do, cut across people and try to fishtail somebody to cause a crash and bring about a yellow flag. You can't just ram somebody as the instigator of a yellow flag can not be awarded the Lucky Dog so be devious and make it somebody else's fault.

You could also wait until you are taking on the Champion Driver trophy and combine this one with it.
The Big One

Be involved in a wreck at Talladega
You can combine this with Heading to the Garage for a couple of easy trophies. Select a Single Race with any car and obviously pick Talladega as the track, whatever settings you like can be applied as well but you must ensure that flags are set to OFF and damage is set to FULL. When the race begins, turn your car around and accelerate straight into the oncoming pack to result in an immediate DNF along with 2 nice new trophies (with Heading to the Garage being the other).
Front Row

Qualify on Pole 20 times
(3)
Not that it's apparent in any way but despite being able to 'qualify on pole' in just about every single event, the only one that records a stat for this trophy is the Daytona Duel in Career Mode. As such, this trophy is a tiresome grind of the qualification stage of Event #1 in Career Mode. In addition to this, you are unable to 'retire' from qualifying even if you post the fastest lap, you have to actually complete the 2 laps for it to count. Here's a run through of of a successful pole qualification for the criteria of this trophy:
- Begin a new Career
- Select Event #1 from the schedule board
- Skip practice and go to qualifying
- Complete qualifying ensuring you complete both laps, do not skip/retire after posting the fastest time after Lap 1
- Skip to End of Event
- Choose to Restart Career
Repeat x19

Your trophy will unlock on your return to the Infield Garage after the 20th successful pole qualifier.
Heading to the Garage

DNF from a race by critically damaging your car
See The Big One.
Chevy Fan

Win a race while driving a Chevy

See Toyota Fan.
Ford Fan

Win a race while driving a Ford

See Toyota Fan.
Toyota Fan

Win a race while driving a Toyota

There's a ton of different ways and means to unlock the manufacturer related trophies but the easiest is to simply leave them until you reach the online section of the guide. You will have to participate in 100 online races so all you have to do is just make sure that you complete at least one solo race with car number 1 (Chevrolet), once with car number 20 (Ford) and once with car number 6 (Toyota).
Fully Sponsored

Sign 10 Sponsors to your car
When you progress through a season and turn in regular top 10 finishes, you will get notified of offers of sponsorship which equates to a few thousand credits per race for having a new decal on your car. The requirement is only for the acceptance, you do not actually need to display the decal if you don't want to but I recommend it just to bypass the constant reminders that you haven't done so when you try to do anything that resembles a race. Also note that sponsorship is exclusive to Career Mode so you are unable to work on this in Single Season mode, see Champion Driver for more info.

Also just to clarify, it needs to be 10 separate sponsors, all at the same time. You cannot for example renew 2 sponsors 5 times each, nor can you have say 5 sponsors, ditch them all and sign a different 5.
Egg Head

Research everything in the R&D department
Fortunately, even the cheat code for an instant 1m credits has carried over from the previous game and I can confirm it still works.

The Race Shop can be accessed from the main menu, and also from the Infield Garage set of pre-race menu's. This is where you buy upgraded parts for your car, with 3 main areas to purchase from. I recommend simply using a cheat which will grant you an instant $1m in credits. To do this, go to the Main Menu and select My NASCAR, Options and Enter Code. When the keyboard part comes up, enter the code 'GIVEMEWONGA'. You will get a message showing it's been successful. Head to the Race Shop and now simply unlock the first upgrade in each category and Investor will unlock. Proceed to repeat the cheat as many times as you need to and keep upgrading everything in the shop to the max.

One thing to mention is that the menus can have a second page despite it not being remotely obvious, keep pressing to the right to make sure you cover every upgrade.

If you're not the cheating sort then it's pretty self explanatory. The basis remains the same but you will just have to earn your money by winning races in Career Mode, though needless to say it will take way longer to do it this way and stick another 30-40+ hours on the estimated time to Platinum.
Investor

Invest in all areas of the Race Shop
See Egg Head.
Sprint Cup Champion

Win the Sprint Cup in Career
The Sprint Cup is a Career Event made up of 38 events. You must place in the top 10 or have turned in enough wins/top 10 finishes to be picked as a wildcard after Event #28 to make the 'Chase'. Having made the cut, you simply need to continue to finish strongly and stack the wins through to the end.

You could play through a season on a very low difficulty if you like but if you are following the Road Map then you will unlock this at the same time as Champion Driver and save yourself a needless playthrough.

It should be noted that you can not obtain this trophy in Chase Mode.
Champion Driver

Win the Sprint Cup in Career on at least 90% difficulty
There are two ways to go about this. I tried to do this legit but within 3 races I knew I that wouldn't be able to complete the criteria for this the 'clean' way so the first option of qualifying and racing to finish the season with the most points is not something that I can speak from experience about. Needless to say though, you are going to need some unreal skills and a lot of patience. For those that can't or don't want to, there's an alternative way:

The premise is simple. Rather than racing, you are effectively going to wreck the other racers by turning the damage up to FULL and through a combination of careful positioning and reversing, you are going to use the back of your car (which is insusceptible to damage) to take out the other drivers. Tactics vary, for some events it's quite easy to have the lead car slam into you and create an almighty pile up which will remove most if not all of your fellow racers but for others it's simply not worth the trouble (namely any track where the pack can't build up enough speed to make the impact serious enough to DNF). Remember that if things didn't quite go as planned for whatever reason then you can always restart even when the race is over so for the first 28 events, do whatever you can to wreck as many cars as possible and qualify for the cut in the top 10 drivers. After the cut, all you need to do is focus on the 11 other drivers who made it and make it your business to eliminate them from the races, only progressing when they are all out. As you will be thousands of points ahead of the other racers who didn't make the cut you can pretty much ignore where they finish. Once you reach Homestead (event 38) and are ahead of everyone else in points, repeat the process one more time and you will be crowned champion on 90% difficulty.

You will also unlock Sprint Cup Champion as well if you are following the Road Map. You should also aim to do something between 10-15 events (at least 5 of these during the Chase) just to bring in the sponsors to make sure you unlock Fully Sponsored as well, the rest of the season you can simulate and still finish first.

One other thing worth mentioning is that you'll end up with anywhere between 50 and 100 Lucky Dog awards so if you haven't unlocked Lucky Dog before now, then expect it to unlock well before you finish the season.
Bye Bye Rookie Stripe

Finish your first Sprint Cup Season in Career
You will unlock this when you complete your first season in Career Mode, regardless of where you finish up. You should obtain it at the same time as Champion Driver if you are following the Road Map but it's also possible to just simulate an entire season if you wanted to unlock this trophy in super quick time.
Second Hand Champion

In Career, win a race using only refurbished parts
This does not have to be a points race, you can do it in the first event at Daytona. Before you begin a race, you are taken to a menu where you can apply refurbished, stock or upgraded parts. All are set by default to refurbished (don't worry that the engine monitor isn't and does not have a stock part, just leave it on Stock) and then proceed. You can either skip all the practice and qualifying, but if you do then you will start at the back of the pack and even with the AI on 0-5% difficulty it's still a little bit of labour to win with just refurbished parts. As a rule of thumb, if you do the qualifying then you can do a shorter race but skip it and you'll need to do a longer one to make up for it.
Legend of Leagues

Win a League Season
(1)
A gift of a trophy due to the online requiring nobody else to join you. To unlock this trophy, simply set up an Online League from the Multiplayer menu. Choose the options 'Race Only' and 'Laps - 2%'. This is the quickest race setting you can have, leave the rest of the settings as they are. Now pick any single track and press to finish. It will then come up with your friends list, select who you want to invite and proceed to send them a PSN message via the auto send function (note that they don't need to accept, they don't even need to own the game or to have even ever played it). Now save your created league and simply proceed to the race, passing the finishing line will unlock your trophy, potentially along with Brave New World and Small Steps.
Brave New World

Take part in an Online Race
By selecting 'Multiplayer' from the main options menu, you can join an online race. As mentioned in the Road Map, all online trophies can be earned solo so don't worry about how active the community is, it doesn't matter. Pick any race mode from the multiplayer menu and this will unlock as soon as the lights turn green on your very first lap, see Legend of Leagues on how to combine this one.
Small Steps

Win your first Online Race
This trophy is super easy to unlock considering that you can race alone, therefore defaulting you the victory. See Legend of Leagues on how to combine this and other trophies in 1 race.
Getting into the Swing

Win 10 Online Races
See Dominating.
Dominating

Win 20 Online Races
You will unlock this en-route to Online Master simply by racing solo on short tracks. As gold trophies go, there isn't a great deal out there as easy as driving in a circle as fast/slow as you like.
Online Veteran

Participate in 50 Online Races
See Online Master.
Online Master

Participate in 100 Online Races
I tried everything to see if there was a way you could get around the boredom of racing 100 times but you can't exit the race or it wont count and in the time it takes you to run out of fuel, wreck your car or burst the tires, you could have been round Watkins Glen at least twice. I recommend doing something else that you can keep picking up and putting down in between races while it loads, it helps, trust me. Simply finish 100 online races and the trophy is yours.
Saving Memories

Save an Online Replay
This is really simple: At the end of an online race you will be given options to Continue, and Save Replay. Choose to save the replay and your trophy will pop immediately.
Paint Booth Pro

Make a custom brush in the Paint Booth
See Custom Ride.
Custom Ride

Create a custom paint scheme
From the main menu, select 'Paint Booth' and choose to apply a new paint setup. You can change the color scheme, layers and decals of your car in any way, all you need to do is save it as you exit back out and the trophy will unlock. Before you do so however, make sure that you at least create a custom brush in the 'Layers' tab to unlock Paint Booth Pro while you're here.
Poser

Take a picture using Photo Mode
This can be obtained during any race but for some reason not online. To take a photo hit to pause the game and select 'Photo'. You can pan around and zoom in and out if you like but when your ready just snap the car and choose to save the image when you back out to unlock the trophy.
Race for the Chase

Win the Sprint Cup in Chase Mode
When you begin this event mode you will be thrown straight to the chase, cutting out 28 events that would usually lead up to it. All you have to do is finish first in the standings by the end of the 10th race and the trophy is yours. Racing on the easiest difficulty will be more than enough to ensure that you finish up in 1st and qualifying in pole position for each will certainly not do you any harm either.
Seasoned Champ

Win the Sprint Cup in Single Season Mode
You can run a single season in Single Player mode from the main menu and as the trophy states, finishing the season top of the pile will bag this trophy. Difficulty does not affect this trophy so knock it all the way down and this will be more a matter of patience than skill, you can even simulate a good few races, just make sure that by the end of event number 28 you are either in the top 10, or you can be in the top 20 so long as you have a reasonable amount of wins, 10 being a safe number (thus making you a safe bet to be selected as a Wildcard). You will then be in the 'chase' for the last 10 races, you can do a couple of things here: You can either keep doing what you are doing, sim a couple here and there or you can turn damage on and try to wreck the other 11 racers who made the chase in each race. Whatever you decide to do, make sure that you are first in the standings and whatever you do, don't simulate the last race of the season else you will have to begin all over again.
Star Driver

Win the All-Star Race
The "All-Star Race" is event number 14 on your season schedule. To win the actual race you must qualify (much like qualifying itself for starting places) for the next cut in rounds of 4 laps. The minimum race length is 20 laps so if you are one of the fastest in the first set of 1-4 laps, you make the 'cut' and proceed to the next round of 4-8 laps etc. I recommend qualifying before the race to start in 1st so you aren't slowed down by traffic in front of you, and simply keep your foot down. I recommend working on this during your clean up, set the difficulty right down and launch a new career and simulate to this event. If you have not yet unlocked Second Hand Champion then ensure you use all refurbished parts and proceed to win the race to unlock that trophy at the same time, which on 0% difficulty is really quite easy.
Laying Down the Laps

Run 10 laps in a single Track Testing session
From the Single Player just select 'Track testing' and choose any car. A nice short track like Bristol will get this over with quicker, just run 10 laps and the trophy is yours. You can take a photo in this mode as well to unlock Poser if you want to as well.