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.
As a direct ancestor of iRacing, the ‘Grand Prix Legends engine’ had multiple stock car racing false starts, before eventually releasing as NASCAR Racing 4. The original NASCAR 3, cancelled and replaced by one that used NASCAR 2’s engine, is barely remembered.
ND is the first home release racing title that attempted a 3D perspective environment, but wasn’t the first home release to offer a first person perspective.
Initially released in Arcades and likely based on Dr Reiner Foerst’s Arcade-only Nurburgring title, the home release for the Atari 2600 featured a ‘chase cam’ perspective and did not add a cockpit view or manual gear changes until the Commodore 64 port in 1982, one year after those features debuted in Commodore’s Road Race.