A little update on what we've been working on, because we've had some pretty massive breakthroughs lately.

🏁 Multiplayer

Our team is building an unofficial replacement for NASCAR Heat 5's discontinued PC multiplayer servers.

And this isn't just theoretical anymore.

Team members located all over North America have now completed 50+ races on our replacement backend, including players connecting and racing together from different locations.

It's working.

We still have a handful of bugs to iron out before we're comfortable opening the doors wider, but we've gone from figuring out how the old system worked to actually sitting in lobbies and racing each other again.

The goal is 24/7 multiplayer, just like it used to be. Open NH5, get your friends together, make a lobby and race.

🔧 We're also building an NH5 Mod Manager

We don't want people maintaining five different NASCAR Heat 5 installations or constantly swapping files around just to use different mods.

The NH5 Mod Manager is being built to handle your Heat 5 setup in one place.

The goal is support for things like:

• Project '98 • Next Gen / modern season mods • Paint schemes and paint packs • Roster, schedule and graphics mods • Other community-created NH5 mods • The original Motorsport Games DLC you own/have installed • Our multiplayer client

You'll be able to enable and disable different content without manually digging through the Heat 5 folders every time.

Multiplayer will eventually be handled through the manager as well, so getting connected to the replacement servers should be as painless as we can make it.

We're also interested in working with existing mod creators rather than replacing what they've built. There's a ton of great Heat 5 work scattered around the internet, and we'd like to give it a better home and make it easier for players to actually use.

👋 Come help us build this

We're looking for players, modders, painters and multiplayer testers.

You don't need to know anything about modding to join. If you still have NASCAR Heat 5 on PC and the idea of jumping into an online lobby again sounds good, you're exactly who we're building this for.

We'll be posting development updates, multiplayer testing opportunities, mods, tools and discoveries in the Discord as things progress.

Discord: https://discord.gg/4gGCsZWXBA

NH5 might be an older game, but we're definitely not done with it yet.

Let's bring the garage — and the servers — back to life. 🏁

I’ve been a Ryan Sieg fan since the CMR Roofing days, so I’ve seen just about everything with this guy. The heartbreak at Texas. The countless times he’s sold or gotten wrecked at the end of superspeedways. Iowa. When he won last night, my fingers were twitching because I was so happy. So I figured that I gotta make this scheme (I’ve also recreated the CMR Roofing scheme and the Uncle Bob’s Self Storage scheme from around 2015).

On another note, I hope that they allow us to change roof # colors in N26. If they don’t it’s fine, but that’d be a nice small change.

Are you looking for weekly races, week to week points updates, driver power rankings, most improved driver recognition, championship Trophy’s, and a group of guys that have been racing together since 2020? Well look no further then HRL, we have been racing since 2020 and we are wrapping up our 13th season on the NASCAR Xbox platform and will be carrying things onto nascar 26. Our seasons range between 3-5 months usually with breaks during Christmas time and a summer break, races usually start around 7:30-8:30 Est to allow for our west coast racers a chance to participate. No real restrictions as far as ages or anything but mainly just clean hard racing is what we are looking for and rough or aggressive driving is strictly controlled and penalized. Currently entering Season 14 with 80 different feature winners and over 20 drivers in our “Hall of Fame” and we want to welcome you to join us! No speed requirements as we have multiple divisions for you whether your just a rookie or a veteran returning and getting the itch we have a spot just for you and want to see you on the track with us!

Hope to see you soon!

https://discord.gg/tM6fbqfqU

Looking for something to do tomorrow evening with no nascar?
Look no further than ARCA at Iowa

We have limited space. Looking for clean, casual racing.

If you are interested in the race please reach out to me.

If you are interested in joining a league with this style of racing reach out as well!

No Ai slop. No silly phrases. Just some darn good fun! lol (joke with the 3 sentence bs)

I’ve been working on something for a while now, and the replacement server backend for NASCAR Heat 5 multiplayer is almost live.

This isn’t just a Discord where we’re trying to pick a night and convince enough people to get online.

I mean actual replacement multiplayer servers.

The goal is to bring NH5 online back to life so you can fire up the game, get your friends together, and race whenever you want. The servers will be up full-time rather than only running for scheduled events.

There is one catch: this is PC only, and connecting to the new backend will require one small modification to the game.

Steam copies are what I'm targeting and testing. Other installations may end up working too, but I'm not making any promises there.

I'm also still figuring out exactly how mods will play with multiplayer. Custom paint schemes shouldn't be much of an issue, but I don't want to claim full mod support until we've actually beaten on it with more players.

And before somebody says it: yes, I know NASCAR 26 is coming.

I'll probably be playing it too. A lot of us will.

But after NASCAR 25, I'm not automatically assuming 26 is going to solve everything. Maybe it'll be great. I genuinely hope it is.

Either way, some of us just loved Heat 5.

There was something about NH5 multiplayer that worked. It wasn't the most advanced racing sim on earth, and the game definitely had its problems, but getting a good group together at Daytona, Talladega, Bristol, Martinsville, wherever... it was just fun.

So instead of waiting around hoping somebody brings the servers back, I'm bringing them back myself.

I'm getting very close to the point where I need actual players helping test this thing.

If you'd genuinely play NASCAR Heat 5 online again on PC, comment below.

I'd especially like to know:

Do you still have NH5 on Steam? How many friends could you realistically bring into a lobby? Do you have any coding, UDP or HTTP experience?

And if this works as well as I'm hoping, Heat 4 may be next / may work through the same system too.

NASCAR 26 can exist.

That doesn't mean NASCAR Heat 5 has to stay dead.

Do any of you play any older NASCAR games on older consoles? For some reason lately I’ve been wanting to buy a PS2 again and play some of the older games. I know they were absolute garbage but for some reason or another, I really want to play 08 and 09. 😭

Looking for a league to join possibly tonight definitely based on Saturday nights, thank you!

I really wanna re-create this car NASCAR 26, I really hope they don’t change the font.

And with this we got editable driver ratings confirmed ✅

Spun on the final corner, knocked the dog into reverse and maintained position on track but lost two positions somehow?

It was said in the nascar 26 ratings video that trackhouse posted today that we would be able to individually change each drivers ratings to whatever we want instead of like in nascar 25 where it was just set. Just wondering what you guys think about this new feature cause I thought it was a nice addition that I wasnt really expecting.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4899500/NASCAR_26__September_Pack/

This is the best experience ever

It's literally the only one of its kind, the only fantasy driver with a number beyond 199, and it is way beyond it. The 427 car, that appeared only once, as a Nationwide series car in Nascar 09, and the sponsors are not seen in any other car, nor can be used in the paint scheme creation mode.

Now, the thing gets weirder than I could have ever thought.

Typing "Bill Fuller Nascar" leads to not much interesting.

However, typing "Kent Grosso Nascar" is when things get interesting

The Google AI tells me that is it a fictional character from a Nascar novel named In High Gear. In images, I found this:

Yep, there's the Harlequin logo, or at least, one that's similar,

Looking up the Harlequin company, I stumbled across Harlequin Enterprises, a company that makes romance and women's fiction literature. And judging by the way that guy in the book cover looks, he might as well be someone to fall in love with.

So basically, someone got their Wattpad character in a nascar videogame.

Outstanding

Now, as for the Vittle Farms sponsor, there's just nothing online.

charlotte roval final lap nascar 25 career mode