THE LEGENDARY NASCAR THUNDER 2003 LIGHTNING CHALLENGES 

In Michael Waltrip's book "In The Blink of an Eye" he says that he was about to pass Jr, but just decided to roll in behind him and push him to the victory instead.

Jeff Purvis is a former Xfinity driver, he actually had a life threatening crash in 2002 (same year that this game covers) which left him with severe brain damage. He was also the replacement driver for Bobby Allison in the 12 car in 1990.

Jeff Burton and Mark Martin holding GameCube controller. Love to see it

Daytona would’ve burned if waltrip passed Dale Jr in that race😂

The 00-02 chevy monte carlo makes me emotional. It looks so good and I cant figure out why

Citgo is a gas station and they still exist

God this game is so nostalgic

In the Jeff Burton and Mark Martin video, it shows Mark Martin’s sponsor as “Mark Martin” and then in the challenge and the rest of the game his sponsor changed to Pfizer, so I wonder if the video that plays behind them talking was from the beta version. And the Citgo thing cracked me up, I’ve seen tons of Citgo gas stations so I’m assuming you must not live anywhere close to me. Also, when Dale Jarrett makes the comment about driving the UPS truck in a race, I think it was in NASCAR2006 that you could enter a cheat code to actually change the paint scheme of the UPS car and one of them changed the car into a UPS truck that was absolutely invincible you could drive it backwards and make everyone blow their engines and then turn it around and win the race with everyone else a million laps down, I think it was 06 but it might have been a different year. Also, go to create-a-driver and make the name “Dale Earnhardt” and press continue and you unlock Dale SR to use in season mode and in race now, and if you check his driver stats it shows he only has one start in the 2001 season and no finishes

Also, that Oreo paint scheme comes with the Nilla wafer scheme as an alternate too

Funny Homestead story, that was the first track I won at as a kid, I remember passing everyone on the outside.

I played the hell out of this game on my PS2 when it came out!! These lightning challenges are really taking me back 😁

Anytime you get to hear Ward Burton is a classic

Loved this game. Used to play it all the time on PS2 back in the early 2000s

This was for sale at my local vintage game store a while back for like $3. Why I didn’t pick it up, I have no idea. But this is making me kick myself over and over again.

Hearing Jimmie say "76 fuel" instead of "Sunoco fuel" sounded weird

More on Jeff Purvis: he won a few Xfinity races and even drove a couple seasons for Joe Gibbs. His Lance Snacks and Porter Cable paint schemes were great!

Mike McLaughlin was another Busch regular. From 1994 to 1999, he drove the #34 for Frank Cicci and picked up a few wins. He drove for Joe Gibbs in 2001 and 2002. Another guy was cool paint schemes.

13:25 Jeff Purvis used to be a successful short track racer and ran many Busch and ARCA races with Phoenix Racing and Brewco Motorsports. Unfortunately he suffered a severe wreck in the early 2000s which caused him to have severe head trauma and never he drove a racecar again.

CITGO is a gas station. It was in my small town my whole life until it changed to BP like 4 years ago. Also RIP Bobby Hamilton.

They should have gotten Owen Wilson to say wow everytime you unlock a thunder plate.

Its surreal looking at most of these rookie young drivers in 2001-2003 are now either retired or dead unfortunately......

8:39 Radman thought he was Denny Hamlin and choked away an easy win😂😂

I spent hours on the big one just because of how random it was. This game was my childhood as well

26:47 since when is the moon that close to planet Earth. jesus.

We're just going to say that the Auto Club track you were on was the 'old' Auto Club track, since it was scheduled for demolition this year. When they go back there next year, the surface will be 25 years old!!

Arguably the best game that showed the abilities of the PS2 at the time.....this and Gran Turismo 4 were like the most realistic and the graphics were amazing for the time.....

These are great lightning challenges in Nascar Thunder 2003 and this is a fantastic video and it's an awesome video game

lots of memories right here. my dad and i would stay up playing this game all the time. childhood in a game

Dude the Talladega one with Mike skinner gave me fits for so long 😂

Man, I loved playing the hell out of 03, 04, and 05. Really hard to get back into though... The driving physics was always super tight and impossible to turn or driving on ice loose and since I havent been playing many driving games in the past few years, Ive lost a lot of my old driving skill. Games are still fun as hell, I just suck lol

Bro I remember playing this game when I was like 5, it was so fun

Labonte's 18 in the results after you complete each challenge looks weird

Love how they have the winston cup logo blurred out on their firesuits but script the drivers to say the words 'winston cup' in the videos

26:57 if I’m not mistaken, that building is the hotel right next to the track. Me and a couple friends will be staying there for the race in august

Greatest nascar game ever. We finally got to do burnouts

arguably the best NASCAR video game ever. i’m hoping NASCAR ‘21 will be in the running to maybe beat it?🧐

Grew up on this era so all the paint schemes on this game I have most all the die cast cars

This game is about the 2002 season btw, not 2003. This was back when sports games were numbered after the next year and not after the current year.

Notice all the "Winston" logos on the drivers' fire suits are blurred out. Edit: 28:39 I see one slipped in verbally, 33:14 lmao

Please play more of this! Also make a part 2 of these challenges.

Apparently the Jeff Burton Mark Martin challenge had a different version of the video on the PS2 from the Xbox.

There's a secret 31st Lightning Challenge but it'll require you to win 8 championships in career mode.

Fun fact: Kasey Kaine in this game isn’t even Kasey Kaine like they’d lead you to believe it’s actually Elton Sawyer; however, Kasey Kaine was signed to the car after they added Sawyer to the game so they just replaced the name, but didn’t change the personal information such as hometown. Also the Busch series and Arca schemes this game has are called Wincraft Series Cars while the Winston Cup cars are just called NASCAR Cup Series cars.

you talked yourself into pronouncing McLaughlin correctly, good job

So is it possible to unlock more thunder plated by doing the same challenge over and over again, or do you have to try the new ones for variety?

Anyone else notice the Winston Cup patch on all the drivers' firesuits is blurred out?

23:00 who would have though that 20 years later, the same rookie driver would be driving a nascar at La Mans. Johnsons not my favorite driver, but damn does he earn my respect

Notes about Shane Hall and his car because I'm a nerd 😂 He was a Busch regular in the late 90s and early 2000s. The #63 he's driving was owned by Hubert Hensley, father of driver Jimmy Hensley and current crew chief Jeff Hensley. Ken Alexander had an infamously bad race in the car at Bristol the year this game came out.

You should try the Nascar 04 lightning challenge where its Ricky Rudd at Texas and they have the big one. That is a better version of the Mike Skinner Talladega from 03.

I know this old, but Citgo's a gas station, and it's still around

I remember that game I completed all the challenges except pay at the pump can’t wait to see you beat it

therapist: *when was the last time you were happy?* me:

My favorite console nascar game and in my opinion the best console nascar game ever made

If you showed this game to a nascar fan in 2021 they would be like “why do cars besides Hendrick and Gibbs win?”

Realradman is the best at revisiting games 😎

Citgo is a gas station

I do hope NASCAR 21 does well and comes to Game Pass...now that I'm a PC gamer, I'd like to play more sports games and I haven't played a NASCAR game in ages. The Thunder games were legendary though I never did the challenges as I just jumped straight to career mode.

I won the jimmie johnson challenge being in second place somehow on the og xbox just now lmao i was trying that for 5 hours which was 2 nights.

The building on 3-4 is the hospital on bill France blvd.

When Radman said bill not chase bill. Me: bill Nye the science guy bill bill bill bill bill bill (That's what I thought of when Radman said bill not chase around 24:00 )

This was my most favorite game ever o. The ps2

I think they do have rubber banding in the challenges. If you play on Rookie and take the lead it goes to veteran difficulty while you are leading. Thats an annoying flaw to old Nascar games.

Bodine was holding a gamecube controller.

Mike skinner’s challenge was my favorite

Citgo was a gas/convenience store/station.

I grew up on this game!

man oh man

Ik I’m 18 but this was my favorite childhood game hands down

“The guy” is Richard Petty

I still play nascar thunder 2004

They got Citgo’s everywhere here in Chicago. It’s a gas station

I own this game, one of my favorites

Homestead used to be worse the corners used to be more square like Indy when the trucks first raced there

04 had those features as i own it on ps2 rn XD

200 years of DUPONT! Sterling put jeff in the grass in the accident that caused the red flag. One race ill never get over.

Citgo is a gas station in the south

Stealing wrecked Gordon after a caution that’s how he got the damage

Citgo was a big gas station chain, kinda like 7 eleven is now or Shell......they're much smaller than they used to be....

bro you should do a nascar season in a custom Kyle Larson car on Nascar Thunder 2003

My got this game was so good

Citgo is a gas station and they still around today

Ah back too when the right rear tires got destroyed vs the front right that happens now.......

How is the resolution so clean wowoowle.

Why is the Winston cup logo blurred? I honestly don’t even know what Winston is 😂

Wow

Citgo is a fuel station company

I like how NASCAR Thunder 2003 has the Daytona Road Corse but not Heat 5 😂

I’m telling ya it’s something wrong with the USB port. The old freezing is what used to happen to my webcam when I used a USB port extender that was broken

2004 had the draft but 2005 had the draft and intimidator

I request 2004 and 2009 if your looking for an old nascar game

Good video!!!

Citgo is a gas station and its still around

That wow tho 😂😂😂

He passed away from head and neck cancer

Citgo-gas station

Citgo gasoline

It’s funny they blurred winston

in another game u had to avoid the wreck and keep the same position, i think it was like 05' or 06'

Jeff Gordon was the leader of the 02 daytona 500 till marlin spun I'm still pissed till this day

Please more