Does the game auto-selects the tuning profile in NFSU2?

In Need for Speed Underground 2, one can tune the car's characteristics. But upon entering the tuning screen, one needs to choose among several 'profiles', i.e., Circuit, Drag, Drift, StreetX, and URL.

My question: Does the game auto-selects which profile to use when entering a race? Or must I first go to, say the garage, and manually choose the profile to use prior to finding & entering a race?

In the Performance Tuning part of the game, you are only choosing which "profile" you are editing, not which one you are using; that is determined by which race you are in. I don't know which profile is used in the open-world portion of the game.

More about this feature can be read here: http://nfs.wikia.com/wiki/Dyno_Run