NASCAR Thunder 2004 (PlayStation 2, Xbox)

NASCAR Thunder 2004 bids farewell to the NASCAR Winston Cup Series name, the Pontiacs, Unocal 76 as NASCAR's primary fuel supplier, and the full-season championship points format with the Alliances and Grudges system, as well as various fantasy tracks making their debuts on the PS2/Xbox versions.

It's also notorious for a Lightning Challenge that is harder than any of the Gran Turismo license tests: the Johnny Benson 2002 Rockingham win reenactment, named "It's About Time".

Bugs Unused and Leftover SchemesMore placeholders than you can shake a stick at. NASCAR Thunder 2003 LeftoversLeftover spotter and crew chief calls from the previous season's game.

Cheat Codes#

Several cheat codes are in the files that aren't documented anywhere else. These work like the cheat codes to unlock Dale Earnhardt and fantasy drivers in NASCAR Thunder 2003.

Unused Portraits#

There are several placeholder driver portraits that are hidden in the files. Most of these are for drivers that appeared in NASCAR Thunder 2003, except for the late Dale Earnhardt and Jason Leffler. The NT2003 leftovers (but not NT2002 leftovers) also has placeholder text on them.

Note that John Andretti has no leftover portrait, as his portrait was overwritten with Christian Fittipaldi's due to the late nature of the driver change.

Unused Audio#

To do: Convert the audio calls uploaded by Grand Prix to ogg. Get NASCAR.DB IDs for driver calls.

Pre-Race Driver Intros#

Ron Hornaday has struggled so far in his NASCAR Winston Cup career, but as his past racing experience shows he could turn things around at any moment.

Ron Hornaday has a pre-race driver introduction by the radio commentators, despite being only a Busch Series driver in the game. This is actually a leftover from NASCAR Thunder 2003, where it also went unused. Interestingly enough, it was rerecorded with the PRN announcer.

It is worth noting that in all audio commentary, tobacco (Winston) and alcohol (Busch) series title sponsorships are always explicitly mentioned.

Driver Calls#

The voice clips for the following cut drivers would have been used with generic pit lane intros in Season and Career modes.

Oddities#

Infineon Night Pit Stalls#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: This doesn't exist in the Xbox version.

Some of the rearmost pit stalls in the night version of Infineon Raceway, for some reason, has pit stall logos from 2001 season, as used in NASCAR Thunder 2002 (it is worth noting that the track in question is different in that game, as it was reconfigured in 2002 to eliminate Gilligan's Island, the track's secondary pit road). In particular, in a case of a cross-game cut content leftover, one of the pit stalls has a McDonald's Drive-Thru logo and number #96, belonging to Andy Houston, a driver that does not appear in NASCAR Thunder 2002, while another stall has corrupted graphics. It is unknown to what driver the corrupted graphics would have belonged to.

It is worth noting this oddity did not occur in NASCAR Thunder 2003, where fantasy time-of-day variations of certain tracks (like this one) debuted. Andy Houston himself does not have leftovers pertaining to him in NASCAR Thunder 2002.

To do: Replace with texture rips.

Andy Houston	Corrupted Pit Stall

Talladega Night Map#

The track selection map used for the night version of Talladega Superspeedway appears to be orientated the opposite of the regular, daytime version.

Unobscured Winston Cup Logo#

Although the unobscured NASCAR Winston Cup Series logo in the Daytona Infield track was edited out in this game, there is another instance of unobscured Winston Cup logo in this game, found within the menu backgrounds that depict the Martinsville Speedway.

This can be easily seen by highlighting Kitt Paint while selecting a driver, as that car has no car number graphics.

Additionally, Jeremy Mayfield's 2003 Mountain Dew scheme has unobscured Winston Cup (and Bud Pole Award) contingency decals on the right-hand side of the car, but not on the left side.

Left side	Right side

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 (existing, fantasy, or custom) continue to use the previous season's Pontiac font for the manufacturer typoface and the Grand Prix model branding. The pace car (Buster Auton) does have updated Grand Prix model branding (but not Pontiac manufacturer branding) on it, however.

Kitt Paint#

Despite being a fantasy driver lacking a driver portrait, Kitt Paint has the frame for driver portrait shown when required, such as when the car is being shown in driver selection screen.

Casey Mears#

Casey Mears' menu car number graphics uses a different number font from what he actually uses in his car, an issue also present in NASCAR Thunder 2003 (when the #41 was driven by Jimmy Spencer). To boot, the car number font Mears uses in the game is actually the 2002 number font; Chip Ganassi Racing used a different font for the #41 in the 2003 season.

Tina Gordon#

Tina Gordon, despite being a Busch Series driver, incorrectly uses Winston Cup Series contingency decals on her car.