NASCAR 09 finds itself with such a low rating for primarily one reason, which is to say it is unplayable. The control stick sensitivity is SO BAD that turning your car on PS2 is all but impossible! When I tried to play the game even with max stick sensitivity (a setting not seen in previous games like NASCAR Thunder 2003, likely because it already had good stick balance) I would have to smash the control stick so far to the side my finger would hurt mid-race to the point I had to take a break and I worried about breaking my controller. Not only is this unfun, it means you can't really make any kind of minor adjustments required for REAL racing and are basically limited to wide turns which makes a NASCAR race unplayable.

Because of that, I was not able to make it far into the game, but by all accounts this game had worse features than previous games in the series like NASCAR Thunder 2003 such as less stuff like Thunder Challenges, less unlockables, and a Career Mode that has interesting progression as you rise up the various racing series ranks but lacks the depth of Thunder 2003's management of development, advertisement and teams. Even if you prefer this game's style of Career Mode, you could just play NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup instead, although I would highly recommend NASCAR Thunder 2003 or 2004 over it. And leave this game in the trash bin where it belongs.