.motorsportNET hot site September 1997

19 Nov 1995 - Jed wrote a utility to fix the damage and other options for the Indycar II demo. Shortly thereafter, he started "The Pits" for this utility and others that he wrote. Meanwhile, over here, I had the "Castle Graphics" site, dedicated to real and simulator racing, and wrote the Quikfix Guide, to aid people in setting up their NASCAR Racing cars.

December 1995 - I had been in conversation with Jed, and on a visit to the UK over Christmas, we met briefly in a pub in his local villiage and had a few beers. Much about racing was discussed, and many beers consumed. All in all, an enjoyable afternoon...

January 1996 - Jed wrote me an email about setting up a mirror site over here, as the transmission band of his site was rather slow from the US. I quickly agreed, and The Pits US Mirror was born. Meanwhile, Gerhard Lingenberg was creating the track coverters, and Jed began working with him to make other excellent patches.

February 1996 - Work began on the "Daytona Project". This was and idea of Jed's to take the Talladega track, and modify it so that it resembled the Daytona Motor Speedway. The AI would be fixed as well, so that they would take more realistic lines through the corners.

late March 1996 - The Pits was growing by leaps and bounds. I combined my simulator racing side of Castle Graphics with The Pits. The Daytona Project was nearing completion. Things were looking great...rather like the calm before the storm...

April 1996 - On a fateful day in April...I recieved a phone call. The caller was Andrew from ISC...International Speedways Corp. "So what?"..you may say. ICS owns the REAL Daytona and Talladega tracks...and they were calling me personally to let me know that their next move would be to call a lawyer to deliver a letter to "cease and desist" all efforts on the Daytona Project. Why? Their copyright laws were being violated. If Sega, who had the rights to use the Daytona name for their arcade racing game were to be informed that our Daytona Project was being made for NASCAR Racing...they would be a bit upset. As well, ISC and any other company is bound by US copyright laws to use all legal effort to protect those copyrights, or risk losing them. So we had no leg to stand on. Jed and I spoke, and we decided it was best to drop the Daytona Project. That triggered one of the biggest newsgroup/email wars in Rec.autos.simulators short little history. People were incensed...who does ISC think they are to bully two small non-profit programmers and not let them modify some tracks in a racing simulator? But ISC was right...and Jed and I cancelled the Daytona Project before a working copy ever made the Internet.

Los Angeles Times, June 18th, 1997

May-July 1996 - The Pits was thrown into the doldrums...having played our biggest card, and the opponents holding a Royal Flush, we folded. No new utilities were released, and very little was done except answer email. Jed continued contact with ISC, and spoke of options for Daytona and for the track being released in future simulators. However, people had other ideas. Many tried to copy our lead, and create a Daytona, but all fell short, and not only that, but put ISC in a further bind. It would be possible if Sega and NASCAR became incensed at the at the amount of copyright violations on the 'net, that Daytona would not be seen in any simulator for a long, long time. But meanwhile, other things were happening...Ed Martin of Papyrus had finished his project, Hawaii, and that threw a whole new monkeywrench into the equation. To be able to race 30 other people, in a simulator, REAL TIME! What a concept, and a racer's dream come true! Hawaii was put into beta-test stage, and a select few were competing on Hawaii to clear the bugs. Finally, it was opened to the public, and announced that next year NASCAR would sanction it as their new racing league...the NRL.

Selected As Racing Site Of the Day For 25 May 1997 By Miracing

August 1996 - So opened a new chapter in The Pits. Papyrus had asked us to distribute the Hawaii software over the 'net via The Pits. Now we had a mission. Grand Prix II was released, and therefore more utilities were required. We obliged. The US Mirror gained it's own domain, the one you are sitting on right now...theuspits.com. Then...another swing and a miss. Jed, tired of the constant barrage of email and flames, decided that he had had enough. So on one fateful weekend, the original Pits disappeared from the 'net without a trace. I duly informed the public of what had transpired...and quickly became overwhelmed with letters of dismay over the loss of The Pits UK. Now the mirror became the primary...and we turn another page...

Selected as Site of the Week for the week of 9 May 1998 by NASCAR3 Scoreboard

September 1996 - The long awaited arrival of the NASCAR II demo. It was unprecedented in the amount of people who attempted to get the sim on it's arrival at another site. The site went down under the heavy load of 100,000 hits in 12 hours!

November 1996 - The Pits finally made it to it's first birthday and had it's first 100,000 visitors at the same time! Things have certainly changed over the last year for The Pits, and we sincerely thank all our supporters who have made it what it is today.

December 1996 - NASCAR Racing II, Kahn, and Kali...what an addition to the racing arena. Now sim racers can enjoy multiplayer racing, free, anytime you want. This should add a whole new spectrum to the online racing scene.

May 1997 - Things are progressing smoothly in the racing sim world, the patches for NASCAR II were finally released, and the NASCAR Racing Organization seems to be on track to be released shortly. Track converters for NASCAR II have been released, so now stock car drivers can turn left and right again! 3D work has been going on by several members of the sim racing community, with lots of progress...new Indycar car shapes are being released right and left!

July 1997 - The Pits made history again with the release of the first package designed for NASCAR II racing, The Pits Touring Car Championship. This used a completely redesigned platform for N2 with different tracks, car bodies, and cockpit graphics.

October-November 1997 - The Pits does another first for racers, replicating the Bathurst 1000 in our 1000 kilometer race at Bullrun. The event takes several weeks to run, with qualifying, and 2-3 drivers in a team taking turns running legs of the race. It's a huge success, and Kevin and brother Keith Schofield take group A honors, while Bruce and brother Drew Kennewell take group B.

Los Angeles Times 8/18/98

November-December 1997 - Papyrus has finally come through in November, with both the BGN Track Pack and the NASCAR Racing Online Series...great time to be in Sim Racing. As well, CART Precision Racing has been released in December, along with Codemaster's TOCA Touring Car Championship. And we made two years on the net!

March 1998 - The Pits starts it's own online racing league, SuperCars! Online. This new series introduced a few new twists to the online racing world, with competition modeled after the Australian V8 Supercars, pitting many V8 performance sedans against each other in head-to-head racing. However, due to problems with TEN and NROS, it is discontinued only two months later.

April 1998 - The Pits went over half a million visits the first week of April...thanks to all our visitors and contributors!

July 1998 - Three short months later, The Pits goes over 600,000! And to think it took us a year to make our first 100,000! The Pits also moves in with GaGames, many thanks to their hosting for letting us have a place to stay.

August 1998 - Almost exactly a year from the release of our very successful touring car patch for NASCAR 2, we join forces with Simulator Cyberworld to bring out another big hit, the N@50 Project, designed to simulate racing in the glory years of NASCAR, the '60s and '70s.

September 1998 - Is sim racing popular or what? 2 months after we make 600,000, we hit 700,000! Thanks again to all our friends and fans who've made us the best sim racing site on the 'Net! Grand Prix Legends hits the stage with superior physics modelling and the 1967 tracks and drivers.

November 1998 - We go over 3 years, and 800,000 visitors! NASCAR99 gets released, as well as Viper Racing from MGI.

December 1998 - The Pits releases it's second patch for the touring cars, The Pits Touring Car Championship for NASCAR 1999 by Papyrus.

24 March 1999 - The Pits finally hits 1,000,000 visitors, after four-and-a-half years on the 'net, according to our counter that has been running from counter.digits.com from day one! We throw a party, and lots of new utilities and patches get strewn about, to thank everyone for their support over the last several years.

April 1999 - Sports Car GT racing sim gets release by Image Space.

October-November 1999 - NASCAR 3 and NASCAR Legends are both released by Papyrus. While decent sims, they both fall prey to the too-little, too late syndrome. But it's very enjoyable tackleing the old big cars on the superspeedways! The Pits creates the Grand National Car Club, which races for one season online, with Jaco Leonard and his big Dodge as the champion.

January 2000 - We break in a new year and a new millenium, without breaking our computers!.

July 8, 2000 - It's the year 2000, and we hit 2 million, only a year and a little over 3 months from when we hit 1 million! Grand Prix 3 hits the shelves later on in July, and NASCAR Heat from some of the old guys at Papyrus (MGI/Hasbro) comes out the following month.

November, 2000 - Papyrus releases the NASCAR 4 demo, and we release our The Pits Touring Car Championship patch for NASCAR 3, as well as The Pits Trans Am Project patch for NASCAR Legends.