Update to NASCAR video game returns live racing to Hanford Motor Speedway

An online racing league devoted to the NASCAR Racing 2003 Season computer game has a new track on its schedule: a revitalized Hanford Motor Speedway whose layout and dimensions draw from the  early to mid-1960s while adding visually stunning, modern-day amenities racegoers would never see at the real track during its heyday.  

This update is a follow-up to my post from last year, when I wrote about Nikki Contey’s early efforts to bring Hanford Motor Speedway back to life 55 years after its last race.

Overview of the track looking down the frontstretch from Turn 1.Contey updated that initial build and unveiled her latest version in a recent weekly race of the NR2003 Fuel Grand National Series. That race was livestreamed on YouTube via the North American Sim Racing Network and featured announcers, replays and lots of action. A separate feed livestreamed in-car cameras and lively driver conversations. “This track is nothing short of picture perfect,” one of the announcers noted, while another called it “technically difficult” to drive.

Contey’s No. 85 Hot Topic car was among the 18 entries in the 140-kilometer race. 

Turn 1 put driver skills to the test. In upping the ante with this new design for an “ancient” gaming platform, Contey studied maps and descriptions from my blog, and detail from the Dick Wallen video of the 1964 USAC stock car race at Hanford and “Indianapolis 500: Evolution,”  a 2009 XBox videogame that also featured Hanford among its track options. 

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