PASSCAR - Mechanics to Keep

I have been re-reading Charioteer by Two Hour Wargames to calcify which ideas/mechanics I want to keep and which need alteration to meet my needs/desires.  The list has of things to change unfortunately has core mechanics on it, forcing more of a complete re-write than a re-skin that I was originally planning.  Below are some initial thoughts on mechanics that I will likely incorporate into my new THW inspired game.  

Focus on the lead pack.

Unlike many race games with massive boards and players moving pieces through each lap, PASSCAR (working title) and its THW Charioteer inspiration focus on racing within a pack.  Instead of seeing the whole track, the action is focused on the cars competing for the lead.  This keeps all players in the race all the way to the end, a critique of many popular racing games.  By focusing only on the lead pack, required table space is also reduced.  

Ability to manage reserve of bonuses.

A significant portion of stock car racing is knowing when to push the car and driver to their max and knowing when to conserve, fuel, driver fatigue, and tire condition.  PASSCAR will handle this by allowing players to earn bonuses by driving less aggressively and save them until they are critical.  There will be situations which force players to use all of their bonuses, so saving them too long increases the risk of losing them without their benefit. I enjoy a good "push your luck" game and the ability to save bonuses for the optimal moment is something not common to the more traditional wargames I've played.  

Bare minimum tables to read.

If I want to ever convince my wife/friends to play, its going to need to feel more like a board game than a war game.  My wife is almost immediately turned off by games with a host of modifiers, results tables, or required rules references.  She wants to be able to learn the rules and then leave them in the box.  This is a very reasonable preference.  We play games to decompress and the last thing we want is to get hung-up interpreting rules instead of playing the game.

Streamlined Play.

For reasons specified above, play needs to progress logically with as few different mechanics as possible.  I have used "Roll 2D6, add modifiers, read results" before and it seems to work well enough as long as the possible result categories are relatively consistent.  I plan to separate results into five categories with modified results of 2-4 being very bad, 5-6 being bad, 7 being neutral, 8-9 being good, and 10+ being very good.  

Potential paint schemes for initial batch of cars