Much work was done to insure historical accuracy with this patch, therefore we've compiled a few notes to let people know what was done to preserve the setting of racing the Grand National series in the early 70s. Probably over 40% of the time spent on this project was research, from watching videos of old races, scouring the internet for photos and info, to talking to webmasters of other vintage racing sites.

Drivers and Cars The initial problem was finding out the drivers and cars of the era, with pertinent paintschemes. There is very little information on the internet, so we had to delve into old videos and books. With help from Ken at Aerowarriors.com, and Speedvision's Legends of Racing series, we were able to put together a small list of drivers for the patch. What was even harder was getting the specific cars and paintjobs matched to the driver. For example, the #21 Mercury Purolator owned by the Wood Brothers had Cale Yarborough, AJ Foyt, and then David Pearson all driving it within the span of a few years (and possibly a few others we didn't know about). While David Pearson is most well known for driving this car, during the period we're attempting to recreate (the target years were 1970-71) he drove the #17 Ford Talladega. However, be aware that with the difficulty of trying to corrolate these, that we've had to take artistic liberty with some of the paintschemes and the year that a driver drove the car may not match with the year another driver drove a car. As well, there may also be mismatches in the specific type of car that a driver drove in that particular time, many teams switched in between Mercury and Ford and Plymouth and Dodge during this period. So, all in all, we've tried to put a driver in a car that he drove, but there won't be a specific time or race that all these driver/car combos will match up. Some may also complain that there are very few Chevrolets in this patch. During these years, Chevrolet played a very small part in NASCAR, in the 1970 Southern 500, only 3 cars were Chevrolet, in the 1971 Daytona 500, only 2 cars were Chevy.

The car shape that we decided on was the Torino Talladega/Mercury Cyclone shape. This was done because all the shapes are identical in NASCAR 2, so we needed one that could be used for several car makes. The Cyclone shape will double as a Dodge Charger, Plymouth Roadrunner and or Chevrolet Monte Carlo (1970-71). We do plan to do other shapes as additions to this patch, the 1961-65 Galaxie 500/Chevrolet Impala, and yes, we plan on doing the Plymouth Superbird/Dodge Daytona Charger too.

Since at that point in time drivers only used pit boards, the spotter function should be turned off in the 'options' menu. This will make it more like the real thing, with only the function keys to get info with.

Tracks Again, we've made every effort to recreate the tracks of the era, both by talking to people, and looking at old photos and videos. Again, there will be some discrepancies with the cars on the track and the year that the track looked as it does in this patch, but it's very difficult with the lack of information to have everything correct. As well, some of the features in the tracks may not appear completely correct as they may have in the original, users will have to be satisfied with the amount of detail we've managed to integrate.

The Racing The first thing that should be apparent to the driver is that the rpms are lower. This is because the engines of the early 70s did not operate at the high rpms that the engines now do, the normal rpms on the track should be below 7000. If you rev the engine by ear, being used to NASCAR2, you will smoke a few...

The cars will appear very difficult to handle in the corners. This is not fake, it was not uncommon for even the best drivers to scrape the wall during the race, or for cars to lose control and crash. I've watched about about 30 vintage races on tape, in just about every one I've seen, one of the big name drivers smacked the wall by himself. Can you think of the last time you've seen Mark Martin or Jeff Gordon hit the wall, all by himself, bad enough to put himself out of the race?

The reason for all of this is simple, bias-ply tires and 'primitive' suspensions, at least by today's standards. These tires do not have near the amount of grip that the new radial tires do, they wear out much faster, and get hotter. The cars were larger, higher center-of-gravity, and had poorer shocks. So if you've ever driven a real modern race car, like at the Richard Petty Driving experience or even your own, you're talking about comparing a meek fair pony to a wild mustang...nothing like each other except the name! We've attempted to recreate these conditions as well, poor grip, hotter temps, and high rate of wear should accurately depict driving in the early 70s.

One other thing that should become immediately apparent is the fact that on the banked tracks, alot of the cars will run a much higher line than they do in the original NASCAR 2 Racing. This is on purpose as well, as due to the poor handling of the cars, many times it was much easier to go high, then be able to get a good run down off the corner. Many times cars were unable to stick to the bottom of the track.