NASCAR Racing 3

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article does not cite any references or sources. (April 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

NASCAR Racing 3 is a racing simulator produced by Papyrus Design Group in 1999. Players can compete in the NASCAR Winston Cup series and the NASCAR Busch Series. There are 43 cars in each field.

Since the year of its release, the games' multiplayer aspect has decreased in popularity, however there are a few die-hard fans of the game that keep this aspect alive. Typically, this number was less than 50, however on July 16, 2007, Sierra announced that it would be terminating its online multiplayer functionality for NASCAR Racing 3, as well as nineteen other Sierra titles. The server was scheduled to go down permanently on August 16, 2007. Other forms of online racing, such as direct IP will still be able to function. As of November 1, 2007 the online server is back up and running, thanks to die-hard fans. Searching the web you'll find several weekly league races as well as updated cars to fill out the field with current NASCAR drivers. Hundreds of additional fantasy and real race tracks created by die-hard fans keep this game fresh and breathing on.

Contents

[edit] Car of Tomorrow

In 2007 the Car of Tomorrow (COT) mod was produced by Pontiacfan46. This change was necessary due to the inclusion of the COT into the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for all 36 races in 2008. Although there are no new physics to go with this mod to re-create the cars' handling.

[edit] Painting Community

From the release of Nascar Racing 3, many great painters posted current day and historic paint schemes of the Winston Cup, Busch Grand National and the Craftsman Truck Series (when the CTS Expansion Pack became available). Other lower NASCAR series such as the Winston West Series, Busch Grand National North Series (currently known as the Camping World East and West Series) and Featherlite/Whelen Modified Series as well as other stock car series such as ARCA, the Hooters Pro Cup Series, CASCAR, ASCAR, IROC, ASA and more have been represented over the years, not to mention sports car series such as the Trans-Am and Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series and even open wheel racing via a pair of CART carsets in the early 2000's and new carshapes such as the TPTCC sports car patch from The US Pits and the ICR4N3 and GTP patches current available at Pontiacfan46's.

In the earliest heydays of N3, cars were available spread all over the internet at sites such as Aimers Racing, Pepsi Racing, 3 Wide Racing, Racing Design, Coast 2 Coast, IWCCARS and countless others. However, with the release of NASCAR Racing 4, many painters were lured away from N3's limited available palette to the 16 million colors, and as the 2001 and 2002 seasons progressed, fewer and fewer sites were available with current-day paint schemes. Eventually, Design Tech USA and its talented stable of painters including MOF, JffB21, Gatorbrian, Nascarn and AJ Shoe carried the community until the onset of the 2004 season, when the site went dormant. The slack was picked up by a resurrected SimCyberWorld (SCW), the sim-racing powerhouse that had itself fallen dormant for many years before being revived by current webmaster Brandon Reed. MOF, Shep34, Riley207, Kestrel and WR2 all found a new home at SCW, as well as Jeff8372 and MOF at the SCW-hosted Wet Paint. Since then, a proliferation of new painters have made various homes around the internet, and the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series cars continue to be produced by Sinton, Powersteamracing, N99Kid dako, and Shep34. Recently, CartmanRules has put together NASCAR carsets from past seasons, ranging from the early 70's up to the early 90's.

The Craftsman Truck Series Expansion Pack brought some new life to the painting community, with some great truck sets been produced. Some early 2000's sets were posted, and many fictional trucks posted. XRaysJL posted some amazing fictional trucks to form a truckset, while ThatGuy posted some great 2002 and 2003 sets. Shep34 painted good quantities of trucks from 2004 through until 2007, and Sinton also contibuted a good contribution in 2007 and now 2008.

[edit] Offline Leagues

In addition to online racing, there have been several offline racing leagues for N3 over the years. In an offline league drivers are provided with rules, race settings, a schedule and other information and files to run the events. The drivers then run the races against ai opponents and send their results in before a preset deadline. The driver who wins their individual race and has the fastest average race speed is declared the winner. Like in real racing points are awared based on a drivers's finishes and count towards a season-long championship. Offline racing is a good choice for many N3 racers because there are real life opponents, but unlike in online racing you can run the events at your convenience. The only offline league for N3 that is currently active, is the SSRA N3 Offline Challenge Series. Now in it's 4th season the league runs 21 points paying events each year, as well as 2 non-points races at season's end. The races are contested on a variety of tracks, ranging from the Long Beach Street Circuit to the Eldora Speedway. Each race averages around 14 competitors, with some fields approaching 20 cars. New drivers are welcome to join the league at anytime.

[edit] Opponents

Note: ^ denotes fantasy driver used to fill out field

[edit] NASCAR Winston Cup

[edit] NASCAR Busch Series

[edit] Other Drivers

[edit] Other Series

[edit] Tracks

[edit] See Also

v • d • e
Papyrus Design Group video games
Open wheel racing
NASCAR series
Other games