wine users - Jun 2011 - Need for Speed Carbon won't pick up mouse and keyboard input

I have wine 1.3.21 under Linux Mint 10 with all updates and patches installed.
I put in the NFS disk and went through the installer just fine. Then I start the
game (using the icon on the desktop, however the same bug is present when I
start it with the .exe in the game folder) The game goes through the don't
try this at home speach (which I used to be able to skip by clicking or pressing
enter) Then it does the intro vid (which I KNOW I could skip before in windows)
Then it loads my game data and says click to continue.... well, I clicked, and I
clicked alot. But for some reason It won't pick up my clicks.
I have winetricks, is there something I should enable and install or what?

downgraded to 1.2 seems to work
however audio cuts out sometimes
and the next time it tries to save the game after the audio has cut out
then it locks up and crashes. ALT+F4 works to escape