First of all, welcome to the forum.
Also, please give us some more info, what are you having problems with? What are you using to make the car simulator? And what's your experience with it?
For now, I'm going to assume you went with the cheap option and bought dark basic classic. First of all, you'll need to make a few small simple games. Why? Simply because it helps you understand the mechanics of game making and how to use your program.
On the coding side, you'll need physics, if you're using Dark Basic Pro, you can download the Newton wrapper for it and learn how to use newton - with newton you'll need to know how to do 'car physics' and general collison.
You'll need to know how to put the game together, the simple answer of course is see what you did with those previously made 'small games'.
You'll probably need to put some sound effects in, these are hard to come by, if you have some spare money, you could get a sound matter pack (a collection of sounds you can use in your games)- though if you're not fully equipped in your game making inventory, you may want to reconsider what you're doing with that spare money.
Music, you don't have to make it yourself, I use this website for free music:
http://www.freeplaymusic.com/
Anything you do use that you haven't made, check its liscence, you may find how you are able to legally use it is limited.
You'll need a level for your cars, you'll need to be able to build it, you can do this in a conventienal 3D modelling program or a Level building, 'deled' is a free one, if you're interested, google it. As for terrain, you make need to make an investment into something like 't.ed' but luckily, if you're using Dark Basic Professional, you can use height maps which are grey scale images that can be turned into terrain, if you need an editor for that, download something like 'terragen' (free) - also, google that - of course you can draw your own height maps.
You'll also need 3D models, if you want to make them on your own, being a car game you'll be able to get away with using 'anim8or' (free) it doesn't allow you to export as animated objects - this is why you can get away with it, you might not have to animated the car, you can also use the limb commands in both Dark Basic packages to animate the wheels of the cars. When modelling avoid 'smoothing or subdivision' this can effect your polygon count and can really slow things down in game, so its best to keep an eye on your polygon count. 1000-4000polygons is good for cars.
Anymaterial you apply in anim8or won't work ingame I'm afraid, you'll need to 'texture' your objects - this means for such things as cars, to make a 'UVmap' you can use 'lithunwrap' (free)for this - an advantage of lithunwrap is it imports and exports different file formats - so if your application (anim8or) only lets you export .3ds, you can import it into lithunwrap and export it into .x which will run in your game. UV mapping set coordinates on your model for a 2D texture image, it will also provide a template for you to draw over in a 2D app. (I say 'it will' but I mean 'you will' it doesn't do all of the work for you I am afraid, you'll need to learn how to UVMap as well)
For texturing, don't go mad for size, if 512x512 pixels or 256x256 pixels is too small for you to work with, you can do 2048x2048 pixels and shrink it before applying it to your model. Two free image tools are 'The GIMP' and 'Paint.NET' - if you have photoshop or Paintshop pro, that's a bonus.
If you want something other than anim8or to model, you've got Blender, which some find difficult to use, but it's very powerful and free. 'Wings3D' is free and tends to be 'modelling only' - others if you're willing to spend about $20, you can have 'Milkshape' - higher up the food chain are GameSpace, TrueSpace, Softimage XSI, Lightwave, Cinema 4D, Maya and 3D Studio Max - though some of this may be far too expensive - especially for someone getting started. I use Hexagon 2 with Cinema 4D 6 as a combination - though if you're going to make games, I'd avoid C4D 6 and go for version 8 or higher. There are a lot of 3D tools out there, the ones I've mentioned (other than Hexagon and Wings) are 'all round 3D modelling' packages.
Though, if your modelling isn't going completely as planned, you can find websites with free/$$$ models. 'Turbosquid' is probably the first places to look for 3D models.
Of course, you'll then need to be able to put all of this together. It sounds like a lot to learn and master to make a game in Dark Basic, but in the end, it's worth it. Unfortunately 3D games making isn't a walk in the park, but once you get started, you really get into it and the most fun part is learning it and making stuff you're proud of.
In terms of the forums - if you're going to 'team request' or ask for help in actually making the game (like 3D models, doing a bit of programming) make sure you have enough to show in terms of the work. The rules on team requests are strict and the majority of team request or ask for project help threads get locked. When giving a work in progress - provide good screenshots that show something and provide info. And of course, the rules here are pretty much common sense.
Hope that provides plenty of info for you.
And good luck with getting your project done.
Hakuna Matata
