That yellow bar is your NITRO GAS fill level. As you use nitro, it goes down. As you drift or do tricks, it refills.

The yellow bar has THREE sections when you activate nitro, each corresponds to a different nitro effect if you double-tap the nitro button on it:
1. Pink Bar (if you have FULL nitro gas): double tap nitro in the pink section to do "shockwave."
2. Blue Bar: double tap nitro in the blue section to do "perfect nitro."
3. Yellow Bar: double tap in the yellow section to do "afterburner."
4. Single Tap Nitro: only burns regular nitro if you single tap the nitro button instead of double tap.

Single tap yellow nitro is good for a medium speed boost, burns the nitro SLOWEST of all the nitro types, but it makes it a little bit harder to steer. Great for straight sections of track. Pro tip: quickly alternate between boost and brake repeatedly to cheese the game into making you go fast and your nitro bar lasts longer than it should.

The blue Perfect Nitro gives a SMALL speed boost, burns faster than yellow, but gives you FANTASTIC handling - good for going faster around turns without relying on drift.

Orange Afterburner gives a HUGE speed boost, burns nitro FASTER than all the other types, and makes it difficult to turn. It's SUPER EFFECTIVE in the air. Best way to use it is to do a trick (barrel roll or 360) off of a ramp and immediately double tap orange nitro. You fly super fast and each trick refills a big chunk of your nitro bar.

The pink shockwave gives a BIG speed boost (bit less than orange afterburner) and FANTASTIC handling (better than blue), but it burns the nitro bar really quickly. Great to use this after drifting, as you're coming out of a turn, since it gives you GREAT acceleration for a second or so, then hit brake and switch to a different type of nitro that doesn't burn your nitro bar so quickly.


Slipstream - ride in the blue path behind another car. Preferably while burning a nitro so you catch up to them.
360 - double tap the brake.
Barrel roll - go up and fly off of a twisted ramp.
Drift - hold the brake button down. This slows you down, but it's a good way to get better steering around turns.
Nitro bottles - pick up the yellow or blue nitro bottles that are scattered around the track.
Wrecking ball - destroy an opponent's car. Nitro into it, 360 into it, etc. But people will complain and think that you use dirty tricks to win if you start wrecking all your rivals like this.

1. At the start, hold the gas and just drive for THREE SECONDS.
2. Double-tap the brake to do a quick 360, to build your nitro and possibly wreck any nearby opponents.
3. Use YELLOW nitro for straight sections of road. QUICKLY alternate pressing nitro and gas back and forth for best results.
4. Drift into turns. If you are in danger of hitting a wall, or if your speed gets too low, pop a BLUE nitro to help you out of the turn. But for best results, keep drifting until nitro bar is full and then pop a PINK nitro to come out of the turn.
5. As soon as the turn is done, hit the brake and then pop a YELLOW nitro again.
6. When you get close to a FLAT ramp, double tap the brake to do a 360 up the ramp. You should keep doing spins in midair, these will refill your nitro meter. So pop an ORANGE nitro to fly faster!!
7. As soon as you land off a ramp, hit the brake and then pop a YELLOW nitro again.
8. When you get close to a TWISTED ramp, pop an ORANGE nitro. The ramp will make you do barrel rolls, which refill your nitro meter while you're in the air. ZOOOM like Superman!
9. Again, tap the brake and then pop a YELLOW nitro when you hit the ground again.
10. Sometimes you can bounce off of certain surfaces, or grind them like a skateboarding rail, to extend the trick and fly even farther. Feel free to experiment... but if you hit a surface at a bad angle you will explode.
11. If you are running a race that allows you to do so, slide in behind another car that has the glowing blue trail behind it and STAY CLOSE. This will continuously refill your nitro. So you can basically ride in 2nd or 3rd place, refill your nitro bar for free - WHILE NITRO DRIVING - and when the time is right and your nitro bar is full, make your move into 1st place! Just bear in mind then the drivers behind you can do the same thing to you.
12. Keep following those tips (2-11) until the race is almost over. When you are within sight of the finish line, pop an ORANGE nitro since it is the fastest one, for a last-minute super speed boost.


REMEMBER - if your steering and braking skills are not very good... you can enable "touch drive" for a simpler experience. But it takes away the ability to steer directly, it's like autopilot for your car. You will be in charge ONLY of the nitros and brakes. And occasionally you choose which fork to take when the path splits. I highly recommend playing with touch drive turned OFF.

Your car has FOUR parameters you can upgrade.
TOP SPEED: you want this BIG so you go fast even without nitro. If this is below 270, your car sucks.
ACCELERATION: this is less important than top speed, but lets you recover faster from hitting a wall or slowing down for a turn. If this is under 60, you're going to rely on nitro after every little crash and every turn.
HANDLING: also less important than top speed. Makes your steering smoother, easier to point your car where you want it to go. If this is below 60, you need a lot of skill to drive properly.
NITRO: determines how slowly your nitro bar depletes when you use your nitro. If this is below 60, your car sucks.


You can also collect "import parts" that can be added to your cars. These are essentially upgrades beyond the car's natural abilities. You will have to pay some extra coins to apply them, but they can give you a SLIGHT edge if every other car in the race is as good or better than you, or if you are struggling to finish a race below a certain time. These come in the random car packs, or as rewards for certain event races, or you can buy them from the shop. You can also SELL them if you think you have too many, for the red TRADE coins.


Typically speaking, higher grade cars are better. D is garbage level, C is mediocre, B is middling. A and above are VERY FAST. That said, a fully upgraded 3-star C car might be better than some 1-star low-level B cars, etc. You get more star levels by collecting more cards for that car. Star levels allow you to boost the car's four upgrade stats to even higher levels, so you can steer better and go faster. If you have a car at max star level, any more cards you find for that car will be converted into the red TRADE coins.


Don't pay too much attention to the overall "power rating" of each car. It's an estimate based on the upgrade level of your car. The only thing it's really good for is estimating whether or not your car has enough high stats to complete the current race (in career mode). But even then it's just a "quick glance" estimate - not a definite indicator. I've beaten races with cars that were quite "underpowered" according to this number. Instead of using that power rating, look at the TOP SPEED and NITRO numbers first. If those are good, you can probably beat the race even if the ACCELERATION and HANDLING are still a bit low. You might not be able to win in first place with low A and H stats, but you probably won't be last place either.

The "best" cars in each class... depends which ones you have cards for, and which ones you paid to upgrade the most. You want a car with HIGH top speed, HIGH nitro, and pretty good handling, and then as long as your acceleration doesn't SUCK you should do fine in practically any car. Here is a table of "good stats" at each car rank.