I always dominated at Redball so badly, I even started lapping cars in a six lap 5% distance Modified race. It became the canon when I was a kid that Redball was my driver's home track because of how dominant I was at that track. I haven't played a game with Redball in it since the quarantine, but I bet if I started the game up right now, I'd still win and lead every lap. Levi Strauss Speedway, on the other hand, should be bulldozed, everything removed so Dale Jr. can't make an episode of Lost Speedways about it, then have all the rubble thrown into the lowest trench of the Pacific ocean.
7:28 You could probably mentione how in the later games (particularly NASCAR 09 when EA couldn't licence manufactureres), Dodge Raceway was renamed to (and def no coincidence there) Tiburon Raceway.
I'd argue that Dodge Raceway is also partially based on Soldier Field in Chicago, as it also held NASCAR sanctioned races outside their football field as well, and the stadium itself is also much larger than Bowman Gray. Great video though dude :) you deserve all the attention it's starting to get
Not really though because although NASCAR ran 2 races from 1956-1957, the Bears didn’t move into the stadium till 1972 as they played at Wrigley Field for almost 30 seasons
Well Dodge Raceway Stadium was definitely the successor to Tiburon SS, as it was later renamed Tiburon Raceway Stadium lol. Similarly, Red Ball was named for UPS for Chase for the Cup, before again being renamed to Orchid/Orchard. in 2006, you can race the UPS truck at the UPS Speedway in the UPS 400 lol
That's exactly what I thought when I saw it. How much do ARCA race there couple months ago and I'm going up there this weekend to see some late models race. It's a great track & great racing
Just an FYI, Dodge Stadium Speedway is not the only or first Official NASCAR game track with a football field in it. That would be Sierra's NASCAR Legends which features Bowman-Grey itself. Also, your point about Redball being a placeholder for Mansfield is a fair point, but it really really looks like the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway....
@@dirtsgamecafe3937 The Papyrus/Sierra games were great, all the way back to the original NASCAR Racing. If you can get them to work on modern PC's, they all are worth taking a whirl. For their day, they are amazing Sims, and they really blow the console games out of the water.
I know Sturgeon Bay, Wi doesn’t sound like the serene place you had imagined, but, coming from a Wisconsin native, Door County is a beautiful place and I do hope you visit because it will certainly change your mind. Most places there are absolutely gorgeous.
I love this kind of stuff and I'm happy to see this video suddenly blow up! Even though it wasn't in the base game, I'd like to also point out that there's technically another real life track: The Lakeshore Drive course that could only be achieved through a cheat code. As a Chicago native I was curious one day and actually discovered that unlike the New York city track, this fictional course almost entirely used real streets in Chicago. I mapped it out and the only part of the track I couldn't identify was the train tunnels, but all of the open streets that made up the course are real streets in Chicago.
Mr. Clean Speedway in Hawaii was Rockingham EA probably had the rights for Rockingham, but NASCAR took it of the Cup and Busch Series schedules in 2005
I remember that, and the track was renamed Allstate Speedway in NASCAR 07. I think they glitched that track in NASCAR 07, because the AI is way too much faster. They're running like the modifieds would.
Cool to see two of these tracks are from my home state. Im gonna check them out when I go back. I was always curious about these tracks, and when I saw your video I grabbed my earbuds and clicked on it. Great video! Took me back to my childhood!
Excellent video!! I love that you included some real life videos too. I always wondered what real life places some fictional videogame tracks were based on too, mostly with old Need for Speed games. The track around the football field blew my mind, I never thought a real place like that existed.
NASCAR raced at Soldier Field (1956) in Chicago, plus Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, and War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo on consecutive days in 1958...The 1958 races were the first 2 starts of Richard Petty's career
@@stigrabbid589 Yep, and they glitched it on NASCAR 07. At least, the PS2 version. The AI runs way too fast in the Truck Series. It's like they're the modifieds. The other divisions race there fine, but the Craftsman Truck Series, I always dreaded going there in career mode. I would always make sure that I owned a Truck Series team so I could hire a driver to race that event. I would've much rather raced on edge at the Chicagoland Speedway in the then Busch Series race, and that track along with Kansas was a pain for the Busch Series.
Thanks for uploading! I had NASCAR 2001 through 09 for PS2 when I was in my early to mid-teens. I remember these fantasy tracks quite fondly and would love the chance to play them again given the right platform. Also, I noticed that Red Ball/Orchard Speedway closely resembles Winchester Speedway in Indiana, more so than the Mansfield, Ohio track. (PS: I would love to see a Truck race, or even an Xfinity race, if not a Cup race at Winchester).
I've been wondering about this as I started playing the old EA games again, especially because of how much I love racing on Old Spice. Great video, man!
Man, what a video! Its so cool to see more and more people giving love to the old EA Nascar titles. I grew up with those games all the way from Legacy 99 to Nascar 08. I don't think I owned 09 but I did play it. Those games were a huge part of my childhood... Woudla loved hearing you talk a bit more about Tiburon SS though! I'll admit that was my favorite out of the fantasy tracks. Was the first time I saw an AI car blowover AND ghost out of the race! (As a kid I thought I killed Kyle Petty in that race because of how it ghosted his car out of the race, hah!)
Great video. A little extra about Concord. It was sold to copart and the track no longer exists. Couple of facts about it It was the home track of Dale Earnhardt and his dad Ralph (the 1/2 mile version) as well as a regular track for guys like Rich Bickle, Jack Sprague, Ricky Hendrick, and Ernie Irvan The track was raced at by NBA Shaquille O’neal in a reality show called Shaq Vs, where he raced against Dale Jr. The track also had 2 locations. The old 1/2 mile was sold and turned into a housing development in the 80s-90s in Concord, NC which gave it the name Concord.
I really enjoyed this video, I never actually knew where the canon locations were for these courses, and I'd love to see what other courses were used as a basis for other fantasy tracks (Like Allstate Speedway)
Allstate Speedway was based on rockingham, and it's canonical location is in Hawaii. Rockingham was one of a few tracks that was abandoned during EA's time making the games, along side Nazareth. They still had the track file, so they changed the background and called it allstate lol
@@dirtsgamecafe3937Cool! I think a lot of people would love to see a sequel video, If you do, maybe add some other fantasy courses in there too. Also I love the fact LA Coliseum copied Bowman Gray and Dodge Raceway lol
Went to Bowman Grey "The Madhouse" weekend before last, Championship Night. A guy rammed another driver several times and pushed all the way around the track🤣
Seeing this video remembered me a lot of Nascar 09 and these tracks, but i know them for another names, if I'm mistaken Old Spice Speedway was called Boulder Raceway Park, Dodge Raceway as Tiburon Raceway, Redball Raceway as Orchard Raceway (Also Toyota Raceway in previous installments), Levi Strauss Speedway I think stuck with the same name, great memories from that game
No wayyyyyy! I grew up like 30 mins away from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin (which is super underwhelming lol) and never knew that EA fictionally placed Old Spice Speedway there. Great video!
What's even funnier is that the racetrack looks like it's located in a recreational location like an amusement park or something, and I think there's a hotel in the hairpin turn 3. For a place that's supposed to look like it's in an underwhelming location, the location looks like a fun place to be. Don't get me wrong: I believe what you guys say about Sturgeon Bay; I'm just being observant of the track on the game.
Old Spice Speedway actually gave clues what state it was in: Wisconsin. One of the races have Cheese Wheel in it, and Wisconsin is the Cheese State. They also mention that it is located in America’s Dairyland (Wisconsin).
Yeah, when I first played NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup, I could've totally bought that Old Spice Speedway was located in Wisconsin. I also used to think that the track was inspired by a recreational go-kart track as the layout and configuration look like it would be a go-kart track at an amusement park.
You thought Old Spice speedway was mystical for you, imagine how mystical it was for me, a kid who grew up in Egg Harbor, which is just up the highway from Sturgeon Bay. It was so weird to have a NASCAR connection, even a fictional one, to my little hometown.
Egg harbor is always a fun place to visit, I like kicking butt in the go kart track at the one amusement park there, but like most places in door county, it is beautiful
Levi Straus speedway is tricky like pocono but the best way to run good fast consistent laps take a sharp but wide dive bomb to turn 3, run turn 2 like a basic flat track and gas as hard as possible on exit then for turn one never lift drive it deep with left side tires on the white line and let the car or truck drift up near the wall. Once I did that every lap nobody could catch me and regaining the lead after pit stops was easier. Redball was always harder than road courses because of how fast tires go away. For redball I found if I lifted on corner entry and gassed it on exit I could get 2 or 3 laps extra on tires and pit with everybody then make a slight adjustment to make the car or truck handle bad on fresh tires but get better once they went away and by the time everybody would need to pit again or lose grip I could drive away. Next a video on Nazareth would be nice. It was a very tough track that could was easy to win on once navigating the turns was figured out.
Speaking of football fields inside racetracks, look at the video of the 1959 Daytona 500...You will see goalposts in the grass between the tri-oval and pit road
Late to the party, but if you ever decide to do videos like this again someday, I'd like to see a deep dive into the history of the fantasy sponsors in the EA Sports games. I especially liked the fantasy drivers they built off of those sponsors in Nascar Kart Racing.
That bridge at old spice is a real thing, I’m a Wisconsin native and I drive through the sturgeon bay bridge every time to get to higher up parts of door county, wisconsin
@@dirtsgamecafe3937 yeah, it’s a drawbridge because all of door county is surrounded water, this part goes over one of the rivers that connect sturgeon bay from Lake Michigan I believe
I always loved Dodge Raceway Stadium. I'm a short track wiz in NASCAR 05 and it was either Red Ball or Raceway Stadium that was my favorite. I always thought it was so cool to have a racetrack around a football field and I would wonder what football team plays there
Either Salem, Winchester, or Anderson. All 3 are high banked short tracks in the racing state. Yes Indiana and NC are both big into racing. Glad I live in one of them.
I honestly had no clue Dodge Stadium was in Florida. I always believed it to be where the Chicago Bears played football but couldn't be called Soldier Field due to NFL copyright stuff.
I always thought redball raceway was modeled after Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway because of the grandstands and the banking, still though it was always my favorite fantasy track.
Bowman Gray Stadium packs in 8 to 10,000 fans every Saturday night, and remains one of, if not THE, best attended weekly tracks in the country! If you’ve never attended a race there, you can’t begin to understand!
I would love for tracks like Red Ball Raceway and Levi Strauss Speedway to one day spring up at least for the Truck and Xfinity Series. The Old Spice Speedway is a very interesting and intriguing concept except for I do not know if acquiring the land for it would be possible. Now for a place like Dodge Raceway Stadium, I do not feel it could happen for a national touring series race as fun as it might be. You would have to have competition cautions at like laps 100 and 200 of say a 300-lap race because you would have to have controlled pit stops since the setup of the pit area creates a risk of crashing entering and exiting the pit area. I am not sure if this could happen for even an Xfinity or Truck race since you would have to limit the field size to like 30 to 32 cars or trucks. It definitely could not work for Cup because the 36 charter teams all need to compete in every race, and you cannot be limiting the field size to below 36 cars for that reason.
I remember on the older nascar games I raced 75 laps at Indianapolis won after wrecking all except Dale Jr till the final laps then finished the race on a flat
dodge raceway is 100% based on bowman gray but as a kid i liked to pretend it was my home track seekonk speedway because of the similar size and very similar lap times, with modifieds at least. that and old spice were my two favorite tracks in nascar 2007
Old Spice Speedway is my favorite fantasy track as I knew it was from Wisconsin because Dairyland and Cheesewheel is what Wisconsin is known for. Along with its location being in Sturgeon Bay which is super close to Lake Michigan and Green Bay but I’m about 5 1/2 hours away. I’d also like to see Trucks return to Mansfield Motorsports Park and Race the Dirt track i think it’ll provide better racing along with different grooves than Knoxville.
I’d make the argument that if there is a half-mile track that looks like Bristol and put in Indiana, it’s not one track but two. Winchester and Salem are sister tracks to Bristol. Fun fact: The first automobile race after WW II was held at Winchester Speedway.
I find it interesting that Red Ball was Red Ball Raceway in NASCAR 2005 and 07 but UPS International Speedway in NASCAR 06, Toyota Raceway in NASCAR 08 and Orchard Raceway in NASCAR 09 btw Southern National Raceway Park became Southern National Motorsports Park in 2013
I think Redball/UPS Raceway is based more on Nashville Fairgrounds because UPS Raceway has higher banking than the real life Mansfield does, as it resembles Nashville Fairgrounds banking more. The front stretch grandstands resemble Nashville Fairgrounds as well. However, I can see that the shape on the track map does kinda look like Mansfield's shape. Maybe it's a mix of the two
I could see it being a mix, for sure. The rural setting is closer to Mansfield, and like I said in the video, it does take it's exact date on the calendar. That said, the extra banking and grandstands could have been inspired by Nashville. Honestly, I think most of the fantasy tracks are a combination of several real inspirations, I just listed the most prominent ones in the video.
I would say red ball is much closer to Lucas Oil Raceway (IRP) than mansfield. IRP also has train tracks right behind speedway and no haulers are allowed in infield. Mansfield is much less wide like winchester compared to IRP sweeping corners. Concord has officially been closed and the track has been dismantled
IRP is already officially in the game, and is much flatter than Red Ball or Mansfield lol. Sad to hear that update about concord, was a very neat track.
I remember racing on Levi Straus lol... I had a tough race, and I finally made it to the front with 8 to go but i was running outa fuel... at the white flag... & Coming outa corner 1 i ran outa fuel finally an coasted thru the 2nd & 3rd corners onto the front stretch where... atleast 3 feet away from the finish line my car just stopped moving... and the pack zoomed on by 😂... then my car slowly rolled over the line once i was in last place... i never raced there again sadly...
