If you ever played Papyrus’ seminal Grand Prix Legends then you’ve read his name. Rich began working as a tester on NASCAR Racing (1994) and was with Papyrus at the end. In this interview, published in 2022, we discuss his time at the legendary studio and the design of Grand Prix Legends, including initial feelings of hurt at not being asked to join iRacing.
Better known today as the developer of Skyrim and Fallout, Bethesda once had a well-respected racing game franchise and were deep into development of a licensed Skip Barber Racing title that never released.
NASCAR Racing 2 is a 1996 racing video game by Papyrus Design Group based on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series of the same year, with a later addon for the 1997 Busch Grand National Series. It featured many drivers, Gen-4 chassis and tracks from both series.
Papyrus developed this title and released multiple NASCAR-based video games with incremental changes up until their transition to the “GPL engine” used in NASCAR Racing 4.
Daytona, Indianapolis from the Cup schedule and Daytona, Vegas, Homestead from the Busch schedule were not officially available for this product.
1998
Papyrus presents the award-winning NASCAR® Racing 2, the finest NASCAR racing simulation in the world! Don’t believe us? Listen to the pros:
“Why am I so good at this? I’m in my basement, every weekend, playing NASCAR Racing 2!”
[spacer] — Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Busch Series driver
“It doesn’t get more realistic than this!”
[spacer] — Randy LaJoie, NASCAR driver
“Race NASCAR2 on the computer…!!!”
[spacer] — Bobby Labonte, NASCAR driver
[spacer] (exclamation points are his)
Race on 16 different tracks, all modeled after the real thing using official blueprints. Tracks include Bristol, Darlington, Talladega, Michigan, and more…!
Tracks
On release NASCAR Racing 2 included 16 tracks while the Busch Grand National Addon Pack included 12 more tracks.