[Vikesrock]

As I understand it this years game should behave close to the ideal model of friction we are all familiar with. Both the floor (with the exception of the carpet) and the wheels are quite hard so the ideal model should be pretty accurate.

Between the soft rubber traction wheels and their patterned tread and the carpet both surfaces are fairly soft and have surfaces that can "grip" each other and not directly slide across each other. This is the source of the non-idealities that draw surface area into play. An extreme example of these "grip" interactions would be velcro.