Exactly as the thread title says really - what do you lot think is the best PC NASCAR Sim? I love my LFS but fancy some NASCAR oval action from time to time as well - so which one offers the best online play / damage models / game feel?

NR2003 by far

Good luck finding a cheap copy of that too... (if you want to play online)

Last I saw, NR2003 was going for around $160 on ebay. A shame since I had thought about buying all 98 copies I found in a closeout store for $6.99 each and slowly selling on ebay. I didn't of course, only bought my one copy.

There is a reason that NR2003 is going for $160 on ebay when you can buy current Nascar sims by EA for $20.

Nascar 2003 is the holy grail of nascar games, getting your hands on a good copy cheap won't be very easy. There may be naughty ways of obtaining the game, but i wouldn't know about that sort of stuff

I have a copy of NR2003 that I don't play anymore. It's currently collecting dust......wanna buy it?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NASCAR-R ... ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NASCAR-R ... ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Not exactly expensive

Quote from VALE 46 :

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NASCAR-R ... ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NASCAR-R ... ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Not exactly expensive

Wow, quite a bit of difference between the UK and the US.

This one is up to $71 with 6 bids.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nascar-Rac ... ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Yeah the cheapest ways to get the game is probably out of country, watch out for scams though.

But when you do get the game, dont forget www.racetrackcentral.us still supporting the game after all these years (yay shameless plug)

Ok, mind if I post some links?

The US Pits, home of The Pits Touring Car Championship mod

Superspeedway.net

http://www.nr2k3tracks.com/ - track list, mod list, utilities, etc. from SimRacingConnection.

Just to name a few.

Things you want to look for.

1. Sounds of Nascar by Methyl Ethyl
2. The Jimmy Johnson spotter at http://www.dwarehouse.com/
3. There is a complete update package, but I can't remember what or where it is. It reworks all the graphics for the current Nextel Cup season and has huge AI edits for each individual track. It is like a 300-500 mb download. At Daytona, the AI will run in a 43 car pack 3 wide for the entire 500 miles just like IRL at Daytona.

The best Nascar Sim is Nascar Heat. I don't car that NR2003 is the best known and most spread out there, Nascar Heat still stands taller in just aobut every aspect. Better netcode, better mods, easier on your machine, more mods, more tracks and apart for cup car style racing it also handles dirt and road course racing like nothing else.

The Nextel Heat '06 mod is soon to be finished as well as the Car of Tomorrow mod, ported from rFactor. NR2003 will have a hard time competing with those.

And to add to things, there is a package these days that let's you play mods for free, no need to buy the game. It's called the Nascar Heat Essentials and are made up form the freely distributed demo files, completely legal.

Find out more here: http://themodsquad.uni.cc/

There is of course rFactor mods, but if you don't like rFactor at all, then it is not best possibility. There is coming also something new, but I really can't comment more about that

OK...OK Dang it Night Hawk. You finally went too far with you're constant praise of N2k3. I reinstalled it after going to some of the links you posted.I would very much like to try and use 1970's stock cars on the 'ring
my dad had a '69 chevelle. An SS I think - blue with a black vinyl top. Remember those?
Also, I d/loaded the Modifieds mod. do you know anything about it, like if it actually works?
I didn't think there was actually any mods for it anymore because of the first garbage.
I thought NASCAR was ok, since I paid $10 for it, but I really don't care for
NASCAR racing itself, I was hoping for some decent mods made from the game like dirt tracks, sports cars and tracks with right hand turns.

TBH, I don't see why people would pay so much for Nascar 2003, but I guess if they'll shell out big bucks for some video game character with a dragon sword of death or whatever then why the hell not.

LOL I guess NASCAR 2003 can't be too bad if Kid likes it, so yeah, I'll give it a second chance.

Racer Y, I haven't messed with many of the mods. I was previously an oval racer in a past sim racing life . I've used the Craftsman truck mod, Busch mod, and Aero88 Wars. The Aero88 mod is nice. I've yet to try the 70's mod. The ring is done very well for NR2k3. I've also tried out the TPTCC mod, but wasn't all that impressed with it. There is also the PWF mod that I haven't tried yet.

@X-Ter, I haven't kept up with the Nascar sims since finding LFS in the beginning of 2005, so I can't comment on Nascar Heat 06. Previous to that (06), NR2003 was still supreme to Heat 05 and all others like Nascar Thunder. I can't remember if Heat was the sequal to Thunder or not. I'm thinking it is since Papyrus quit after 03 due to EA buying exclusive rights. Up through Heat 05, due to it being EA, they put simulation on the backburner and made it more gamey. It was a very sad day for Nascar simulation.

Then I found LFS and the rest has been history .

I d/loaded the 70's mod, the 67 sports car mod and the TCCp or whatever mod. It's a blast to drive the old stockers on the ring.
LOL I can see why muscle cars never raced in Le Mans.

I dunno, I don't really think the ring is all that for racing on, but it really is a lot of fun to just drive on and the track is very well made

Whoa, 67 sports car mod? I'm going to have to actually look at those links I posted up there. That's a new one to me. I just pulled those links from an old link list I have.

I've only messed around on the ring in the stock Winston Cup cars, and a bit of the Aero88 Wars mod. I'll definitely have to get the 70's and 67 sports car mods downloaded.

/me heads off to dig deeper into the links as soon as I finish reading the forum here.

Oh yea, theres another link I missed. www.masgrafx.com

Quote from X-Ter :

The best Nascar Sim is Nascar Heat.

I concur!

Quote from mrodgers :

I can't remember if Heat was the sequal to Thunder or not. I'm thinking it is since Papyrus quit after 03 due to EA buying exclusive rights.

Nope, it's not. Nascar Heat hit the shelfs in the spring 2000 and was almost never heard of outside USA. Few copies even got to this side of the pond. It was made by Monster Games Inc. (MGI) and distributed by Hasbro Interactive and later sold to ATARI. The later is actually why ATARI is the owner of the Ghostcar Technology and why they sit so tight on it. MGI invented it for Heat and it's a blast.

NHeat has some of the best netcode known to man. And when your connection cant handle it any more, you shut down the server, switch to "thin" mod and go again only to find out you can host twice as many cars
It's also nice to your machine, but still able to look resonably good for a sim that old. With 1024 textures at work (and if the artist was any good) it'll look just as good as NR2003 ever did, and most times even better.

So... If you're tired of NR2003 demanding to much of your machine, and Nascar Thunder always lacking in looks and physics. Try Nascar Heat for instant satisfaction.

--- Edit ---
Oh and there isn't one mod made for any of the other two Nascar sims, road or oval, that NHeat can't match or do better. I promise!

Quote from X-Ter :

So... If you're tired of NR2003 demanding to much of your machine, and Nascar Thunder always lacking in looks and physics. Try Nascar Heat for instant satisfaction.

Sheesh! NR2003 demanding too much from my machine? I played it on a Celeron 667 MHz for over a year. I could only draw half the field in front of me, but that is still better than LFS can do as I can't handle a full LFS field in front of me on an A64 3500+. Everything else in NR2003 was set on high, except for one thing that I can't remember. The animated stuff I believe (the moving helicopter and blimp).

It's the arcade features you describe there of Nascar Heat that kept folks with NR2003. There was no arcade in NR2003, much like LFS. There wasn't enemy meters and ghost cars. Strickly racing, though it did have drivers aids, which actually made it harder to drive due to it screwing up the FF. NR2003 was the best of its time and of later sim releases in terms of physics until RBR (which I had never heard of) and LFS came about. Though, LFS physics today may be superior to a 2003 sim, it still can't do oval racing like NR2003 can due to being designed for 2 different racing types.