Boring but Practical/Video Games/Driving Game

Interstate '76. Throughout the game you'll salvage all kinds of crazy weapons from other cars, like Dr. Radar tracking missiles, flamethrowers, lava mines, mortars, cluster bombs, and the dreaded Hades Cannon. But ultimately, nothing is more effective at totaling other cars than the 30cal machine gun you start with. Except maybe two machine guns, or higher caliber machine guns.
- Averted in Nitro Pack, where you don't salvage weapons; you have access to an unlimited supply of weapons before each mission and can equip your car with as much as it can hold. Formerly Awesome but Impractical weapons like the Dr. Radar missile launcher become Awesome Yet Practical when you can equip three of them, when ammo refills between missions are free, and when there's still room in the car for a heavy machine-gun turret.
In racing games that employ Rubber Band AI and upgradeable vehicles, you might find that dropping your car to the lowest settings (and perhaps, even drive around in a lower tier car) is the only way of finishing the race. Need for Speed Underground was notorious for this.