Mac
PCOverview
Nascar Racing 2003 Season is the final installment in Papyrus's famed Nascar Racing Simulation Series for the PC. The game featured all of Nascar's 23 tracks which would be later updated by the games mod community. It also featured an online mode in which you could race against 42 other players. The game has lived on through its modding community years after it was originally released in 2003 with many new mods and tracks coming out each year.
Creation
Nascar Racing 2003 Season was created in a joint effort by both Papyrus and Sierra and was released on February 4th, 2003 for Windows PC and Mac.
Features
All 23 officially-licensed NASCAR tracks from 2003.
Entire 2003 Winston Cup roster + over a dozen fictional cars for use in each race.
Online racing against fellow racers through special servers or LAN networks.
Championship Mode: Run the entire 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup Series schedule and see if you have what it takes to become a true NASCAR champion.
Replay Studio: Save entire race replays and re-watch your greatest racing accomplishments (or crashes).
Modifications
In the many years since Nascar Racing 2003 Season was originally released, many gaming communities took up the task of not only adding on to the game through new carsets and racetracks, but by creating entire mods that allowed for open-wheel racing, sports-car racing, and other types of cars to be used in the game. Today, several large groups and sites still provide new cars, mods, and tracks for the game, which continues to thrive in the video game racing community.
End of An Era
In early 2004, Electronic Arts (EA) sought to purchase the exclusive rights for NASCAR-related games, and all that stood in their way was Papyrus and Sierra. In March of 2004, EA acquired the exclusive rights to be the sole producer of NASCAR-related games, thus bringing the end of NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. With EA holding the rights, all copies of NASCAR Racing 2003 Season were pulled from the store shelves. With no future in NASCAR-related games due to EA owning the gaming rights, Papyrus would close down two months later in May 2004. In the years after the breakup of Papyrus, some of the staff from the NASCAR Racing 2003 Season would later go on with David Kaemmer to start up what would later become the popular iRacing.com racing simulator.
