NASCAR Racing 2003 Season is the latest incarnation of Papyrus' NASCAR Racing series. The history of Papyrus and racing sim software spans almost an entire decade, with Indianapolis the Simulation, then release of NASCAR Racing 1 in the mid 90's, to the release of NASCAR Racing 2 in 1997, NASCAR Racing 3 in the latter part of 1999, NASCAR Racing 4 in 2001, and most recently, NASCAR Racing 2002 Season released just one year ago.

For those who don't know, NASCAR has always been popular in the south from its very inception and spread all up and down the east coast in the early years. At present day, NASCAR has seen growth nationwide and has beat out every other sport for the title of America's Sport. NASCAR features similarly prepared front-engined cars based loosely on American production sedans, these big cars with big engines and skinny tires are a real handful at speed, and when you throw 40+ cars together on the super-speedways, giant ovals or tri-ovals at the same time with speeds approaching 200 miles per hour, things can get interesting...

NASCAR Racing 2003 Season features all 23 NASCAR tracks (including the freshly renovated New Hampshire facility and Infineon Raceway - formerly known as Sears Point), driving tutorials and aids (toggle traction control, anti-lock brakes, and automatic shifting), an all-out arcade mode with indestructible cars, Enhanced Physics Model consulted with Jasper Motorsports and Goodyear - better physics than ever before, realistic vehicle response to damage (except high-speed collisions), save races and watch as replays, as if on TV and multiplayer support (up to 42 players per event).

In the game, you'll be able to run practice Sessions, Single Races, and full Championship Seasons. For each race, you can alter numerous settings, such as weather, number of laps, and number of competitors, etc. You can also tweak your car setup with a truly extensive set of options - compression, camber, caster, rebound, ride height, and numerous other configurable settings. You can choose from a complete race weekend with a timed practice, qualifying session, happy hour, and the actual race, or just skip to the race itself. It's definitely pretty much same as previous NASCAR titles.

So what's new in NASCAR Racing 2003? I'd say that the most notable changes in NASCAR Racing 2003 Season come in terms of its overall gameplay, the tweaks and improvements made to the physics engine and modifications designed to make the title as realistic as possible. You truly get the feel of having a 750-horsepower car at your control! They have also added a Pit Stop Frequency option that forces people to pit in shorter races, and "Adaptive Speed Control" and "Automatic AI strength" options. With "Adaptive Speed Control" option selected, the artificial intelligence attempts to match its performance with yours, so if you're driving poorly, your opponents decelerate to match your speed.

Overall, NASCAR Racing 2003 Season is hard-core racing simulation of the highest quality, all hard-core players will be satisfied enough, especially with the physics engine and atmosphere in the game. NASCAR Racing 2003 Season is not a big step forward from the previous NASCAR Racing title. But anyhow, Sierra and Papyrus have done a good job with this game and it's worth playing. If you plan to buy this game, be assured, this is no casual racer. It's like putting your money down on a real NASCAR machine. You must learn to drive it! Also don't forget the game is definitely made for people with a wheel and pedal set, so playing with keyboard only quite sucks. You can try this playable demo (119MB).

System requirements: Pentium II 450 MHz processor (Pentium III 800 MHz or higher recommended), 64 MB RAM (128 MB recommended), 16 MB Direct3D compatible video card (32MB recommended), 8X CD-ROM drive, DirectX 9.0, OpenGL* 1.1 or later (may not work on all cards and/or system configurations)