NASCAR Racing 2003 Season

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To do: The European version has Terry Labonte removed from the default carset.

This game/console's online features are no longer supported. While this game/console's online features were once accessible, they are (as of August 16, 2007) no longer officially supported and online-exclusive features may be documented as now-unseen content.

NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, or NR2003 for short, was a 2003 auto racing simulation released by Papyrus Design Group. It is widely regarded by many fans as the greatest NASCAR game of all time. Unfortunately, this would be the final game Papyrus would release after EA Sports bought out an exclusive NASCAR license that lasted from 2004–2009. However, the game still lives on with different cars and tracks being developed by a great modding community, while its engine went on to form the basis of iRacing.

Unused Audio#

In the sound data for the spotter, there exists several lines that can't normally be heard in-game.

Unheard Insults#

Firstly, there are unheard insults to the player. These were left over from the game's predecessors and would normally play if you collided with the pace car. Since the pace car cannot be collided with, these lines go unused.

"Now I know why you got canned by your old team..."

"Phew! I can smell that brain fart from here!"

"That move will put you in the hall of shame!"

"I guess you really are as dumb as you look!"

"You keep doing stuff like that, and we're gonna lose our sponsor!"

"*sighs* Now that was a stupid thing to do..."

"Hey, are you trying to get us DQ'ed or what?"

"Congratulations! You've just set the sport back 30 years with that move!"

"Forget about the racecar! I bet you've couldn't even drive a nail!"

"Hey, in case you didn't know, you're not supposed to do that..."

"You know what? I think this air wrench is smarter than you!"

"What are you doing out there? What a dipstick move!"

"Excuse me, but don't you think it's time to take off the blindfold?"

"Hey, just between you and me, the idea is to AVOID the other cars..."

"You're not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are ya?"

Unused Green & White Checkered Line#

Secondly, there is an unused line of the spotter telling the player to prepare for a green-white-checkered finish. This was originally believed to be linked to a 2004 Cup Series expansion, since that season was the first season NASCAR used the Green-White-Checkered rule in the top division, but there was no evidence supporting that theory. However, Papyrus did have a Craftsman Truck Series expansion pack planned (they had done so for NASCAR Racing 3, as well as a standalone game), before EA bought out the exclusive NASCAR videogame license, forcing the pack to be turned into a third-party mod. The Craftsman Truck Series had the Green-White-Checkered rule in place since 1995, implying that this line could be a remnant from the expansion pack's development.

Oddities#

Pontiac Branding#

For the 2003 season, in what turned out to be their final season of participation in NASCAR, Pontiac introduced a new font in their branding. However, all Pontiac cars in the game's default carset continue to use the previous season's Pontiac font for the manufacturer typoface and the Grand Prix model branding on them. This may have likely reflected the branding used in its presentation/launch version at the 2002 Brickyard 400, however.

Unobscured Winston Cup Logo#

To do: Source tweet was deleted - get a replacement picture.

The textures for Chicagoland Speedway's on-track Victory Lane, curiously enough, has an unobscured NASCAR Winston Cup Series logo on them.