NASCAR rules with penalties, full pit lane and yellow condition driving should be added to the game

[Lurhem]

Hi,

For the "younger" hearts like me (cough cough)... you probably remember this NASCAR 2003 edition made by Papyrus.

In that one, all rules were in use in this game. You had to drive the car into the pit lane and stop it correctly on its spot. You had to drive in the pit lane with traffic when opponents were also in the pit lane.

Cautions were not skipped like all actual NASCAR games we can see these days. You had to drive the car in formation and respect rules. Constantly, your spotter was giving you information where you have to take place or for what you have to do.
"You must stay behind car # X"
"You must stay behind car # X in the inside line"
"You have a free pass, catch up with the car's formation and stay behind # X"
"Stay behind the leader or the pace car"
"Pit lane is closed, do not come in on this lap"
"Pit lane opened, you can come in"
These are just a few messages that it was possible to hear in this game under yellow condition. As you can see it, even if the race was under a yellow condition, as a player, like real drivers by the way, you were very busy.

Penalties were also in use in this game. There were the black flags, the stop and go at the pit and you could receive a late turn or worst, you could been disqualified! Yes!

Cheating on the starting grid wasn't a good idea. If you did not respect the rules of the starting grid, you were penalized. Also, pushing an opponent into the wall and intentionally creating an accident was not without consequence. By the way, this is not true that you can push intentionally into the wall anyone in NASCAR. Yes, rubbing is tolerated but not at all cost. There is safety rules, if you don't respect them, you will be penalized. Each accident is revised and judged. Days of Thunder is movie not the real thing!
Those cars can reach 200 MPH with slipstream, can you really think you can deliberately try to kill someone on the track?

In NASCAR 2003, for be responsable of a car crash, you could receive a stop and go or be sent back to the back of the grid with a lap delay before the restart of the race.

If your car was too badly damaged, you might even be forced by in-game officials to go back to the pits for repairs. A black flag that gives you 3 laps to obey the rule. This is the real rule of a car with a dangerous part.

The examples are endless... NASCAR2003 was a true simulation and ahead its time. How is it possible that in 2020 the NASCAR games look less complete and just as good 17 years later?
Is technology regressing?
And for those who wouldn't like those rules, there were options in the menu to remove them if you wanted to. Same thing for driving in yellow condition or in the pit line, you could remove them in the options. How is it possible that the 2003 edition is richer in content?
The customization was immense. You could remake all the cars, teams and enter all the names of the drivers yourself.

I just can't understand how Papyrus was able to achieve this 17 years ago when today it seems impossible to do...

[Vlad Tepes]

I totally agree with you on all points. Unfortunately, it appears that publishers no longer care about real simulation. There aren't enough true fans left, sorry to say. Today's customer wants instant satisfaction, quick races, no penalties, and the ability to just smash up cars. Sorry but that's the way it is.
I still keep NR2003 on my computer, and I always have a championship running. Currently I've re-started the default 2003 season. Yes I agree, it is so much more.. way beyond anything available today.
However, I also keep NH4 on my computer only because it's prettier, has the modern drivers / rules, points system, as well as all three major series. The career mode is fun, which I can't do in NR2003. Even if not realistic, I enjoy budgeting my money and starting out with a small poorly rated team. Just something different.

Yes you can get mods to make NR2003 look great, even get the modern drivers, however, you still have to live with 2003 rules, so when a caution comes out, you get run over because everyone is racing to the flag!

NH4 is silly in that if I'm badly damaged, and the end of the race is near, I just wreck the field and get a brand new car, start in the back, and work my way to the front because none of the AI pit lol..
You can't get away with that in NR2003.

All I can say is I keep them both and play them both for different reasons.

[Lurhem]

Thanks for your comments voltaj, very appreciated. I'm probalby too much nostalgic.

The only thing missing in NASCAR 2003 is the continuity of a championship like a career mode. This thing wasn't invented yet. Unfortunately, at the end of a season, it's the end. You restart a new championship. So, there is no continuity. But the game itself is full real driving! Do not make a mistake. I'm telling you. You will drop the car and believe me, the wall or the grass in a smoked spinout will come very fast. Speaking of grass, do not put a wheel outside the track, the car will instantly become loose. You really drive a NASCAR in this game. When you have completed a race of 200 laps... At the end of it... You had a real endurance race!

Me too, I still play today with the NASCAR2003, I find that it has not aged so badly. Regarding the roster, I tend to replace a few names in it with friends and people around me, just for the fun of seeing their names. So it doesn't bother me too much that the roster is from 2003.

Concerning NASCAR games of our new days, as I said before, it was already optional at that time, the game could very well do it again like this and those who don't want rules or full driving could remove them. Exactly, the game would appeal to more customers.
For me, it's just inconceivable that with today's technology, the game is regressing.

Even customization back then was light years ahead of today's games.

[Vlad Tepes]

Yes, so true, now that we have such advanced technology, why can't we make a game such as NR2003 now NR2020 lol..
By the way, are you aware of the program called "Score4"? It is a league monitoring/reporting program that was used for people who hosted online leagues. With it you can create a season, a career, assign winning $, generate various points, report standings and race histories in HTML format.. It will import any saved NR2003 race and generate winnings, points, etc.. With this program I used to do a "modern" career.. by modern I mean around 2004 to 2010, when the chase was being used. The only thing I'm not sure about would be modern day stage racing. I suppose you would have to race for xx laps, save the game, etc.. who knows.

Anyway, I do agree with you but I think we are the minority, my friend. For every person that asks for realism and realistic driving, 10 more want simplistic physics that allow you to smash through the field with no penalties.

I was following Project Cars 3 here on Steam because I own PC2, (ok game but not great); Well in PC3 (supposedly and upgrade from PC2) they are removing pit stops and tire wear completely! And this is supposed to be good!??

[Lurhem]

Score4 ? Nope... I will browse it.

What I understand is that you can create your own continuity for your championship... is it what you are telling me?

[Vlad Tepes]

Yes! It was used years ago by online leagues and this is one of the ways they kept track of careers, seasons, races, player stats, etc..
It's very flexible and the best part about it (as odd as it sounds) is that you import a race, then allow it to calculate the results. If you see an issue (let's say you forgot and used the wrong points or you didn't assign enough money) you can just delete what you did, import the same race again, and keep that one.

The only caveat is that you have to remember to save your race right after you finish. If you don't, then you have nothing to import.

There is another one called Race Points Manager, similar but not as good in my opinion. You might want to try them both. I have them on a back up drive if you can't find them on the web.

[Vlad Tepes]

Here is someone doing a tutorial a few years ago.
If you decide to use it, you need to download the full package, which used to be payware and require a password, but he also offered a free version. At one point he packaged the freeware program (to install) and included an executable which was "paid" and you would just copy that over the installed program, getting full use of the program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbDTXZyM0C4