NASCAR Thunder 2003
Developer(s)	EA Sports Budcat Creations (PSX)[1]
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Release date(s)	PS2, GC, XB, PS: September 29, 2002 PC: October 16, 2002
Genre(s)	Sim racing
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer, multiplayer online
Rating(s)	ESRB: Everyone (E)
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2, GameCube, Windows (PC), Xbox, PlayStation

NASCAR Thunder 2003 is a racing simulator published by Electronic Arts in September 2002 for PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox and in October 2002 for PC. It is the fifth game of EA Sports' NASCAR series. The product features Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on the cover. It was the first time the NASCAR's Most Popular Driver Award recipient was featured on the cover.

Gameplay

Being a racing simulation, NASCAR Thunder 2003 places the player in control of a stock car in a NASCAR race. Players battle AI drivers for race position for a preset amount of laps. As the race progresses, players are forced to make a pit stop to refuel, replace tires and repair damage.

For multiplayer support, NASCAR Thunder 2003 becomes split-screen and eliminates much of the field. Normally featuring the normal NASCAR amount of 43 drivers in a race, it is limited to 18 or less with more than one human driver. As an option, the AI drivers can be disabled, allowing the players to just race each other.

Modes

Quick Race simply allows up to four players to participate on any track and race with a specified amount of settings. After the race ends, the game returns to the main menu.

Career Mode is the most involving mode of the game. Returning from NASCAR Thunder 2002, it places the player in control of a custom Winston Cup driver, who must manage pit crew, sponsorship and research and development for 20 seasons.

Although Season Mode, like Career Mode, allows the player to play through 20 seasons, it is essentially the Quick Race mode with season standings. Unlike career mode, which starts the player with inferior equipment and pit crew, they are equal to the AI's from the start. Players have a choice to play as either existing or custom drivers, and the settings are completely customizable, unlike the limited options in Career Mode. To achieve multiplayer compatibility, it not only decreases the amount of AI drivers in a race while also randomizing them, meaning only a handful of drivers end up participating in the entire season. However, like in Quick Race, they can be disabled for a 2-4 player competition.

Thunder License is the time attack mode of the game; basically a tutorial and time trial of how to race across the included tracks.

PC version

A month after the console versions' release, a PC version of NASCAR Thunder 2003 was made available, becoming the second PC game in the series. However, despite its later release, it removes all special modes (and the entire Thunder Plate system) except for Season mode. A new testing mode is added, and 16-player multiplayer over the Internet or LAN is supported. It generally received lower scores from reviewers than the console version did.

Drivers

Fantasy Drivers

Unlockable Drivers

Lightning Challenges

Lightning Challenges are playable re-enactments of Winston Cup races from 1999, 2001 and 1st part of 2002. These challenges are played on all three difficulty levels. The drivers tell the players about what happened to them in the race and you have the chance to relive that moment or change history. The drivers also have a video playing behind them, showing the players of what happened to them in that situation.

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• This is the only game that features all 3 of the Sauter brothers.
• The cover also has the cars of Ricky Craven and Jeff Gordon in the inset.
• The driver register says Kasey Kahne is from Chesapeake, VA and was born in 1959, but that information is for Elton Sawyer, the previous driver of the #98 Busch car which suggests he would have been in the game.
• When the player looks at a NASCAR Legend's information screen, there will be a number 43 instead of the driver's real number suggesting that all of the Legends are Richard Petty.
• This is the first game to have a female driver in it: Shawna Robinson, driver of the #49 BAM Racing Car, they also mention she as a he.
• Elmo Langley was a longtime pace car driver for NASCAR.
• Mark Martin's car is referred to as the "Mark Martin Ford" even though it is sponsored by Viagra's parent company, Pfizer.
• Bobby Wawak is the only NASCAR Legend in the game to have no victories or championships, he is credited for surviving a fiery car accident that would have surely killed him.
• James Finch was not really the driver of the number 1 Yellow car; he was actually the car owner in real life.
• All the members of the MRN Radio Crew are selectable drivers in the game.
• The fictional Tiburon Speedway is raced in the opposite direction and the cars do not race with restrictor plates, therefore, the cars can reach 235 mph (about 378 km/h) easily.
• Drivers Dave Blaney and Hermie Sadler are not present in the game, but they are present in the rival title NASCAR: Dirt To Daytona.
• At the Daytona Road Course, in a corner, the actual uncensored Winston Cup logo can be seen.
• Bobby Allison races his 1988 Busch Series Dodge sponsored by Piper Aircraft, the car is a Dodge, but Allison drove a GM car for most of his time in the series.
• In the intro for the "Freedom" Lightning Challenge, Casey Atwood says he is driving the number 19 Dodge but in the Lightning Challenge video he is really driving the #7 Sirius Satellite Radio Dodge. He drove the 19 in 2001.
• Unlockable Busch Series Drivers appear in the game but are not playable in their own series.
• Fantasy Drivers have numbers over 100, but this is illegal in real life, as NASCAR Drivers can only have numbers from 00-99.
• If the caution comes out during a short race, the lap will repeat until it is completed.
• The bio for Alan Kulwicki says his Rookie Year was 1959, when it was actually 1985.
• Greg Biffle almost always retires at the end of the first season in season mode because he is listed as being 43 years old. In reality, he was 32 years old at the time.
• In the Lightning Challenges Sterling Marlin refers to his car as the Coors Dodge. In the game, his car does not have the Coors sponsor.
• In the PC version of this game, all console unlockables are already unlocked at the start of the game.
• Joe Nemechek, Kenny Wallace, and Brett Bodine are absent in this game
• During the Pre-Race segment, the MRN reporters say 'NASCAR Winston Cup' Series, where Winston is a Tobacco Sponsorship and is censored in the game.
• The Windows version does not feature Career Mode.
• It is hard to see but the cover of the game has Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Budweiser sponser. The hood sponser is changed to his name but the rightside sponser is still Budweiser.
• You can see that Shawna Robinson has a ponytail in victory lane, but Kyle Petty doesn't.
• This is also the only game to feature an ARCA driver Frank Kimmel. Kimmel did attept to run a few NASCAR Cup races in 2002.

References

External links

• Official EA Sports website for NASCAR Thunder 2003
• NASCAR Thunder 2003 at MobyGames

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