NASCAR 2003 Daytona 500 Test Session

I am trying to slowly wean myself off of my custom built Windows XP gaming rig by moving those titles that I still want to play onto my Windows 7 system. It is a slow and painful process as the XP machine was the first computer I built with my own hands from scratch back in April 2007. The rig booted right up after installation of the operating system and I ran it without a reinstall for over four years.

NASCAR Racing 2003 Season is the last great NASCAR racing simulator made. Period.  It is such the Holy Grail of stock car simulations that copies still go on eBay for well over $200, and that is long after the Papyrus/Sierra multiplayer racing lobbies were closed down. It has been previously covered here on this blog when I was running a championship exactly two years ago this month.

Martinsville Speedway

Ridgeway, Virginia: The Goody’s Pain Relief 500 was run at Martinsville Speedway in Henry County, Virginia. The 0.526 mile oval is paved with a mix of asphalt and concrete, and is banked 12° in the turns and is relatively flat on the straights.

My version of this event based on a 25% race length and a 4X pit stop frequency is a 125 lap race with a full fuel load providing an estimated 47 laps under green flag conditions. This would result in approximately 2.65 pit stops during the event, more with the inevitable yellow flags.

Bristol Motor Speedway

Bristol, Tennessee: The Food City 500 was run at Bristol Motor Speedway in Sullivan County, Tennessee. The 0.533 oval is paved with concrete and is banked at 26°-30° in the turns and 6°-10° in the straights. Although I would largely solve my controller issues from the race before, the result was the same.

My version of this event based on a 25% race length and a 4X pit stop frequency is a 125 lap race with a full fuel load providing an estimated 47 laps under green flag conditions (yeah, right). This would result in approximately 2.65 pit stops during the event.

Atlanta Motor Speedway

Hampton, Georgia: The Kobalt Tools 500 was run at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Henry County, Georgia. The 1.54 mile quad-oval is paved with asphalt and is banked at 24° in the turns and 5° in the straights. This would be a horrible track for me to begin to experience controller issues on.

My version of this event based on a 25% race length and a 4X pit stop frequency is an 82 lap race with a full fuel load providing an estimated 17 laps under green flag conditions. This would result in approximately 4.82 pit stops during the event.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada: The Shelby 427 was run at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Clark County, Nevada. The 1.5 mile tri-oval superspeedway is paved with asphalt, has four turns banked at 20 degrees (however this change occurred in 2007, and I believe the game is modeled at the then 12 degrees).

My version of this event based on a 25% race length and a 4X pit stop frequency is a 67 lap race with a full fuel load providing an estimated 17 laps under green flag racing conditions. This would result in approximately 3.94 pit stops during the event.

California

Fontana, California: The Auto Club 500 was run at the 2 mile D-shaped oval which is paved with asphalt, has four turns banked at 14 degrees, a front stretch banked at 11 degrees and a back stretch that is relatively flat at 3 degrees. The circuit is smooth and wide and a pleasure to race on if you have a setup that will allow you to move between multiple racing lines.

My version of this event based on a 25% race length and a 4X pit stop frequency is a 63 lap race with a full fuel load providing an estimated 13 laps under green flag racing conditions. This would result in an approximately 4.85 pit stops during the event.

Daytona

Daytona, Florida: On 12/6 I had started a new NASCAR Racing 2003 Season Championship using The BullRing 2011 Sprint Cup modification at 95% AI strength and Adaptive Speed Control (ASC) set. I finished second in that race having been passed by Bill Elliot in the trial oval when I thought I had the race won.

During the event I had some concerns about how ASC was working. There were some times where I would pass whole lines of cars without the draft (a bad sign at a restrictor plate track) just to be passed by them later, in what seemed as if the game was adjusting to my driving ability.