- This is about a NASCAR computer game. For the series, see NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family-owned and operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sports events. It was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1947-48. As of 2009, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of the late Bill France Sr...
The
NASCAR Racing series of video games, developed by
PapyrusPapyrus Design Group, Inc. was a computer game developer founded in 1987 by David Kaemmer and CEO Omar Khudari. Based in Watertown, MA, it is best known for its series of realistic racing games based on the NASCAR and IndyCar leagues, as well as the unique Grand Prix Legends. Papyrus was acquired...
, started in 1994 and ended with the release of
NASCAR Racing 2003 SeasonNASCAR Racing 2003 Season, or NR2003 for short, is a computer racing simulator released in February 2003 by Papyrus for PC and Mac OS X. The game was the last to be released by the company before EA Sports bought the NASCAR license from NASCAR. The game included all of the 2003 NASCAR season tracks...
in 2003. Later NASCAR games were released by
Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts is an international developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible...
who, through their
EA SportsEA Sports is a brand name used by Electronic Arts since 1993 to distribute games based on sports. Formerly a gimmick inside Electronic Arts sports games, that tried to mimic real-life sports networks, calling themselves "EA Sports Network" with pictures or endorsements of real commentators such as...
brand, took over the official NASCAR license. This article deals with the original series release,
NASCAR Racing.
NASCAR Racing was released in the fall of 1994 for
MS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the main operating system for personal computers during the 1980s. It was preceded by M-DOS , designed and copyrighted by Microsoft in 1979...
personal computers.
- This is about a NASCAR computer game. For the series, see NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family-owned and operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sports events. It was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1947-48. As of 2009, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of the late Bill France Sr...
The
NASCAR Racing series of video games, developed by
PapyrusPapyrus Design Group, Inc. was a computer game developer founded in 1987 by David Kaemmer and CEO Omar Khudari. Based in Watertown, MA, it is best known for its series of realistic racing games based on the NASCAR and IndyCar leagues, as well as the unique Grand Prix Legends. Papyrus was acquired...
, started in 1994 and ended with the release of
NASCAR Racing 2003 SeasonNASCAR Racing 2003 Season, or NR2003 for short, is a computer racing simulator released in February 2003 by Papyrus for PC and Mac OS X. The game was the last to be released by the company before EA Sports bought the NASCAR license from NASCAR. The game included all of the 2003 NASCAR season tracks...
in 2003. Later NASCAR games were released by
Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts is an international developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible...
who, through their
EA SportsEA Sports is a brand name used by Electronic Arts since 1993 to distribute games based on sports. Formerly a gimmick inside Electronic Arts sports games, that tried to mimic real-life sports networks, calling themselves "EA Sports Network" with pictures or endorsements of real commentators such as...
brand, took over the official NASCAR license. This article deals with the original series release,
NASCAR Racing.
NASCAR Racing was released in the fall of 1994 for
MS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the main operating system for personal computers during the 1980s. It was preceded by M-DOS , designed and copyrighted by Microsoft in 1979...
personal computers. It featured more than 25 of the 40 regular drivers in the 1994 NASCAR Winston Cup season. Notable absences included
Dale EarnhardtDale Earnhardt, Sr. was an American race car driver, best known for his career driving stock cars in NASCAR's top division. Earnhardt had four children, Kerry, Kelley Earnhardt Elledge, Dale Jr., and Taylor Earnhardt...
(who would go on to win the Winston Cup that year),
Bill ElliottWilliam Clyde Elliott, a.k.a. Awesome Bill from Dawsonville, is a part-time driver and former champion of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Elliott was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America on August 15, 2007. He won the 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series Championship and has garnered 44...
,
Dale JarrettDale Arnold Jarrett is a former American race car driver. He is the 1999 NASCAR Winston Cup Champion and the son of two-time NASCAR Grand National Champion Ned Jarrett. He is the younger brother of Glenn Jarrett, a former NASCAR driver himself and pit commentator. He is also the father of former...
,
Kyle PettyKyle Eugene Petty is a retired American NASCAR driver and currently a NASCAR broadcaster for TNT. He is the son of racer Richard Petty, grandson of racer Lee Petty, and father of the late Adam Petty. His wife is Pattie and they have two surviving children Austin and Montgomery Lee...
and
Darrell WaltripDarrell Lee Waltrip is a three-time former NASCAR Winston Cup champion, the 1989 Daytona 500 winner, current television race commentator with Fox Broadcasting Company and columnist at Foxsports.com. He is the older brother of current NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip.- Local racer :Waltrip was born in...
, although the latter's brother,
MichaelMichael Curtis Waltrip is a professional race car driver and co owner of Michael Waltrip Racing. He is the younger brother of Darrell Waltrip, a three-time NASCAR champion . Waltrip is a two-time winner of the Daytona 500 , and drives a self-owned #55 NAPA Toyota Camry in the Sprint Cup Series...
, was included.
The game let the player race with up to 38 other cars (32 on shorter tracks like
BristolBristol Motor Speedway, originally known as Bristol International Raceway and Bristol Raceway is a NASCAR short track located in Bristol, Tennessee. It was constructed in 1960, and held its first NASCAR race on July 30, 1961...
and
MartinsvilleMartinsville Speedway is an International Speedway Corporation-owned NASCAR stock car racing track located in Ridgeway, Virginia, just to the south of Martinsville. At in length, it is the shortest track in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The track was also one of the first paved oval tracks in...
) and it also offered multiplayer action via direct links (one computer connected to another via a LAN) and also through an online system owned by Papyrus called Hawaii.
The
CD-ROMCD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback, the 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data. CD-ROMs are popularly used to...
version of the game also offered a
SVGASuper Video Graphics Array or Ultra Video Graphics Array, almost always abbreviated to Super VGA, Ultra VGA or just SVGA or UVGA is a broad term that covers a wide range of computer display standards....
graphics mode which was accessible through the command prompt (by entering "nascar -h"), but it was too demanding for many of the computers of its age, mostly
486The Intel i486 was the first tightly pipelined x86 design. Introduced in 1989, it was also the first x86 chip to use more than a million transistors, due to a large on-chip cache and an integrated floating point unit...
and early
PentiumThe original Pentium processor was a 32-bit microprocessor produced by Intel. The first superscalar x86 architecture processor, it was introduced on March 22, 1993. Its microarchitecture was a direct extension of the 80486 architecture with dual integer pipelines, a faster FPU, wider data bus, and...
PCs. A hardware accelerated version was later created and bundled with the
Matrox MystiqueThe Mystique and Mystique 220 are 2D, 3D, and video accelerator cards for personal computers designed by Matrox, using the VGA connector. The original Mystique was released in 1996, with the slightly upgraded Mystique 220 coming in 1997.-History:...
video card.
Tracks
NASCAR Racing included the following tracks:
- Atlanta Motor Speedway
Atlanta Motor Speedway is a track in Hampton, Georgia, twenty miles south of Atlanta. It is a 1.54-mile quad-oval track with a seating capacity of over 125,000. It opened in 1960 as a standard oval. In 1994, 46 condominiums were built over the northeastern side of the track...
- Bristol Motor Speedway
Bristol Motor Speedway, originally known as Bristol International Raceway and Bristol Raceway is a NASCAR short track located in Bristol, Tennessee. It was constructed in 1960, and held its first NASCAR race on July 30, 1961...
- Darlington Raceway
Darlington Raceway is a race track built for NASCAR racing located near Darlington, South Carolina. It is nicknamed the "Lady in Black" and "The Track Too Tough to Tame" by many NASCAR fans and drivers and advertised as "A NASCAR Tradition"...
- Loudon (New Hampshire Motor Speedway)
- Martinsville Speedway
Martinsville Speedway is an International Speedway Corporation-owned NASCAR stock car racing track located in Ridgeway, Virginia, just to the south of Martinsville. At in length, it is the shortest track in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The track was also one of the first paved oval tracks in...
- Michigan International Speedway
Michigan International Speedway is a two-mile moderate-banked D-shaped superspeedway located off U.S. Highway 12 on more than near Brooklyn, in the scenic Irish Hills area of southeastern Michigan. The track is used primarily for NASCAR events. It is sometimes known as a "sister track" to...
- Phoenix International Raceway
Phoenix International Raceway, or just PIR, is a one mile tri-oval race track located in Avondale, Arizona. It opened in 1964, as the new home of major open-wheel racing in the Phoenix area, replacing the track at the Arizona State Fairgrounds as an automobile racing venue.-History:Due to a change...
- Talladega Superspeedway
Talladega Superspeedway is a motorsports complex located in Eastaboga, Alabama, United States. It was constructed in the 1960s in place of the abandoned Anniston Army Airfield by International Speedway Corporation, a business controlled by NASCAR's founding France family along with Daytona...
- Watkins Glen International
Watkins Glen International is an auto race track located near Watkins Glen, New York, at the southern tip of Seneca Lake. The facility is owned by International Speedway Corporation...
Track Expansion Pack
A track expansion pack, released in 1995, added many more officially licensed tracks, including:
- Charlotte (now Lowe's Motor Speedway
Lowe's Motor Speedway is a speedway in Concord, North Carolina, north of Charlotte. It features a long quad-oval track that seats 167,000 people, with room for 50,000 more spectators in the infield...
)
- Dover Downs (now Dover International Speedway
Dover International Speedway is a NASCAR-sanctioned race track located in Dover, Delaware, owned by, and serving as the corporate headquarters of, Dover Motorsports, Inc. It is co-located with a harness racing track, Dover Downs, and shares the complex with Dover Downs Hotel & Casino...
)
- North Wilkesboro Speedway
North Wilkesboro Speedway is a short track that held races in NASCAR's top three series from NASCAR's inception in 1949 until its closure in 1996....
- Pocono Raceway
Pocono Raceway also known as the Tricky Triangle or the Bermuda Triangle is a superspeedway located in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania at Long Pond...
- Richmond International Raceway
Richmond International Raceway is a 3/4-mile , D-shaped, asphalt race track located just outside Richmond, Virginia in Henrico County. It hosts the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and Nationwide Series. "America's Premier Short Track" also was formerly host to the Indy Racing League IndyCar Series...
- Rockingham Speedway
- Sears Point (now Infineon Raceway
Infineon Raceway, formerly Sears Point Raceway, is a road course and drag strip located on the landform known as Sears Point in the southern Sonoma Mountains near Sonoma, California, USA. The course is a complex series of twists and turns that go up and down the hills...
)
Neither
DaytonaDaytona International Speedway is a race track in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States. Since opening in 1959, it has been the home to the biggest and greatest race in all of NASCAR, "The Great American Race", the Daytona 500. Today the facility has a seating capacity of almost 168,000 spectators...
nor
IndianapolisThe Indianapolis Motor Speedway, located in Speedway, Indiana in the United States, is the home of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race....
(where the Brickyard 400 was first held the year
NASCAR Racing was released) were ever officially offered from Papyrus for the game.
Papyrus did produce a Daytona track only for use exclusively at a fan simulation game at the Daytona USA museum.
Realism
Damage was realistically modeled, but could be turned off to make the player's car indestructible. The effect of crashes varies depending on severity. Very minor impacts have no effect. Heavier impacts can cause sheet metal damage, which hurts aerodynamics and may cause engine overheating. A crumpled hood can also make it difficult for the player to see the track. Heavy impacts will damage a wheel or even blow the engine. Damage can be repaired in the pit stop, except for blown engines which are not repairable. Damaged sheet metal is removed, making for an imperfect repair with impaired aerodynamics.
The vehicle's sensitivity to crash impacts was increased in a patch to the game. In the readme file attached to this patch, Papyrus explained that the primary motivation for this change was multiplayer mode, where abusive players had previously been able to achieve faster lap times by deliberately hitting walls.
Repairs require a considerable amount of time (generally 1 minute or longer) to complete. This combined with the impaired performance means that damaged vehicles will not contend for a high finish, but can still race for points which accumulate in the season standings. This game uses a scoring system similar to what NASCAR was using at the time, where all finishing positions earn a varying number of points.
The engine will fail if over-revved, and it can also fail from overheating (but such a scenario is rare).
Yellow flags could also be turned off and players could run any race distances of their choosing. The speed of computer opponents is also adjustable, providing a competitive race for players of varying skill levels.
As previously noted, the game contained many real-life drivers. This was in stark contrast to early releases, which usually featured a single real-life personality and a bevy of fictional drivers. The game was also the first stock car racing simulator to include real sponsors on their respective cars. Alcohol and tobacco sponsors were removed, but alternate carsets from fans restored many of these.
NASCAR Racing also gave players the ability to set up their car in a realistic manner, be it adjusting the airdam height, rear spoiler angle,
gear ratioThe gear ratio is the relationship between the number of teeth on two gears that are meshed or two sprockets connected with a common roller chain, or the circumferences of two pulleys connected with a drive belt.- General description :...
s, shocks, tire pressures and more. The original game manual explains the effect of these parameters.
Driving physics are realistically modeled in the game. The adjustable variables have a significant effect on handling, and the tires themselves will grip differently depending on wear and temperature.
Tires are modeled in much detail. The game keeps track of 3 temperatures for each tire, reflecting temperatures at the center, inner, and outer edges. Numerous variables can influence tire temperatures. For example, an underinflated tire will tend to heat more at the edges rather than the center. An incorrect camber setting can cause one edge to heat more than the other. Temperatures are also influenced by many other factors such as weight distribution, toe-in, driver behavior, and the cornering characteristics of the race track. Tires in the game perform optimally at elevated temperatures, but if they heat excessively this effect is lost. The player can view current tire temperatures using an in-game keyboard command.
Dedicated players can spend a great deal of time optimizing the car's setup to perform at its best on a particular race track. This testing process is normally performed using the game's Practice or Testing modes. The player's setup can be saved to disk for future recall, and the game also provides a few prefabricated setups for each track.
Vehicles cannot lift into the air. The graphics system always renders them with all 4 wheels on the ground, although the physics system may attribute wheels with varying amounts of downforce (potentially resulting in no traction).
The Doppler effect is simulated. Vehicles approaching at high relative speed will emit a higher frequency engine sound, which will shift to a lower frequency as they pass.
Customization
A separate program called the Paintkit was included with
NASCAR Racing, which allowed users to design their own race cars and import them into the game. As well as this, players could change the car type (
Chevrolet LuminaThe Chevrolet Lumina sedan , coupe and minivan were first introduced in 1989 for the 1990 model year as a new range of vehicles from the Chevrolet brand of General Motors to replace both the Chevrolet Celebrity sedan, and the Monte Carlo coupe. The Lumina was an answer from General Motors to the...
,
Ford ThunderbirdThe Thunderbird , is an automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company in the United States over thirteen model generations from 1955 through to 2005...
or
Pontiac Grand PrixThe Pontiac Grand Prix is an automobile that was produced by the Pontiac division of General Motors. First introduced as part of Pontiac's full-size model offering for the 1962 model year, the Grand Prix name was also applied to cars in the personal luxury car market segment and the mid-size...
) and the brand of tires used (Goodyear or
HoosierHoosier Racing Tire is an American tire manufacturer primarily specializing in the production of tires for competition use. An Indiana based company, Hoosier claims to be the world's largest race tire manufacturer. The company was founded in 1958, and has since provided tires for use in series...
).
Soundtrack
Former racer-turned-broadcaster,
Ned JarrettNed Jarrett is a retired race car driver and two-time NASCAR champion.Jarrett was best known for his calm demeanor, and he became known as "Gentleman Ned Jarrett". Yet he was an intense competitor when he put his two hands on the steering wheel of a NASCAR Grand National stock car...
loaned his voice to the game's title sequence, saying, "I'm Ned Jarrett. From Papyrus, this is
NASCAR Racing." These were the only spoken words heard in the game as there was no in-race commentary or communication from the
crew chiefCrew chief may refer to:*In auto racing, a crew chief is the head person on a pit stop*In baseball, a crew chief is usually the most experienced or senior Umpire in a game...
.
Music for the game was provided by members of
Skid RowSkid Row is an American heavy metal band, formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey. They are named after Phil Lynott and Gary Moore's first band. They were most successful in the late 1980s and early 1990s when their first two albums with lead singer Sebastian Bach and drummer Rob Affuso were...
, including bass player
Rachel BolanRachel Bolan was born James Southworth. He is the bass player and primary songwriter of New Jersey metal band, Skid Row. He founded the band in 1986 with guitarist Dave "The Snake" Sabo...
who also appeared in the game as a driver of a green-and-purple #00 car with the letters "RB" on the hood.
Modifications
Several mods were made available through various websites, including updated NASCAR seasons and car shapes, the Rolex 24 Hour cars (with 3 car shapes), classic NASCAR seasons, Touring Cars and more.
Users created versions of Daytona Int'l Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway - edited from versions produced by Papyrus for later NASCAR Racing releases such as NASCAR 3 - for use in NASCAR 2.
Numerous utilities were developed for NASCAR Racing too, including
AIArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science which aims to create it. Textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents,"...
editors, season editors and track editors.
External links
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- NASCAR Racing at GameFAQs
GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by CBS Interactive. The site has a database of video game information, cheat codes, reviews, game saves,...