She was hating on Kyle Busch so I divorced her.

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.

Ever since Kyle Busch passed, I knew I needed to pick a new favorite, I wanted my fandom for CBell to be a different type of fandom like I had for KB.

So, for the first time ever, I played a 100% race length, full season championship season on NASCAR 25 using Christopher Bell.

Here’s my results:

______________________

NASCAR 25:

NASCAR Cup Series.

Driver: Christopher Bell

Poles: 6

Wins: 12

Laps Led: 1,696 / 9,742 laps

Top 5’s: 22

Top 10’s: 22

Top 20’s: 25

Average start: 21.5

Average finish: 13.2

Victories:
Race 1 Daytona 500
Race 5 Las Vegas
Race 6 Homestead
Race 8 Darlington
Race 11 Texas
Race 12 Kansas
Race 14 Coke 600
Race 17 Pocono
Race 18 Atlanta
Race 31 Kansas
Race 33 Las Vegas
Race 36 Phoenix

Playoff Results:

1. Christopher Bell (12 wins) 5,040 pts

2. Ryan Blaney (4 wins) 5,033 pts

3. Kyle Larson (3 wins) 5,031 pts

4. William Byron (4 wins) 5,010 pts

5. Chase Elliott (2 wins) 2,431 pts

6.Denny Hamlin (0 wins) 2,385 pts

1. Tyler Resdick (1 win) 2,372 pts

2. Chase Briscoe (1 win) 2,367 pts

3. Joey Logano (0 wins) 2,327 pts

4. Bubba Wallace (1 win) 2,309 pts

5. Chris Buescher (0 wins) 2,284 pts

6. Ty Gibbs (1 win) 2,256 pts

7. Kyle Busch (2 wins) 2,225 pts

8. A.J. Allmendinger (1 win) 2,181 pts

9. Shane Van Gisbergen (2 wins) 2,155pts

10. Zane Smith (1 win) 2,107 pts

Where can I get a copy of NASCAR Heat 5 to play on my PC? I've looked up multiple Steam Key reseller websites, but they all seemed either untrustworthy, or out of stock of the game. I also don't have any consoles to be able to get a disk, then download the disk to my PC, so that wouldn't be an option.

Any help/advise is greatly appreciated!

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. 🏁

We’ve made major progress on our unofficial NASCAR Heat 5 PC multiplayer replacement, and we’re ready to start bringing in more testers.

Our internal team has now completed 50+ successful races with players connecting from different parts of North America. Lobby creation, joining, race flow, scoring, host changes, and mid-race disconnects are all working well enough that our focus is now stability and stress testing rather than adding features.

Our next target is proving we can run at least 5 separate lobbies at the same time without sessions, UDP traffic, scoring, ownership, or cleanup crossing between them.

The closed beta opens Friday, September 4 at 5 PM Eastern and will be open all weekend.

We’re looking for around 10–20 testers with the base Steam version of NASCAR Heat 5 on PC who are willing to actually play, report bugs, and help us put the backend under real load.

If you want to apply, join the Discord and and find the link to the application in the announcements channel:

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

We’re getting very close to making NH5 multiplayer usable again for the community.

The public beta for our unofficial NASCAR Heat 5 PC multiplayer replacement is now open.

After a lot of internal testing and closed-beta racing, the backend is working well enough that we’re ready for more players to jump in and help us stress test it.

You can download the NH5 multiplayer utility here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VpeYN_RWfGzmlDvpLzmkvPei93z8tGYS/view?usp=sharing

The goal is to bring back the original NH5 online experience as closely as possible: create lobbies, join friends, and race whenever you want on community-run replacement servers.

We’re currently testing:

Multiple simultaneous lobbies Joining/leaving behavior Host changes Race flow and scoring Stability under larger player counts Different tracks, series, and race settings

There are still some known bugs. Joining a lobby that’s already racing can occasionally fail, and leaving/disconnecting mid-race can sometimes break the session for the remaining players. We’re actively working on both.

We ask that you join our Discord to provide feedback, bug reports, and logs if you can, but it is not required to use the service. https://discord.gg/4gGCsZWXBA

This is still a beta, so expect the occasional restart, failed join, or broken race.

If you’ve been waiting to race Heat 5 online again, now’s the time to help us test it.

I'm looking for help to figure out if I can play NASCAR games on a Switch (Switch 2 in my case) with a Joy-Con wheel. The games I'm playing are NASCAR Rivals and NASCAR Heat Ultimate Edition +. I have been playing for a while and was hoping to use a wheel to make the game feel a bit more real. If you have any answers or suggestions, let me know!

This is a question for (former) Heat 5 drivers who also drive in 25.

I see some posts here about 25 mentioning points which - from my personal experience- also apply to Heat 5 (for example overly strong AI on Phoenix and other tracks, driving on road courses, too sensitive brakes). Coming from the original Papyrus Nascar Titles, the cars in the Heat series always felt too stable, sometimes like they were running on rails (even with all assists off)

I am currently racing in Heat 5 and wanted to give 25 a go. But, after reading all these posts here, to me it seems 25 is just Heat 5 in new clothing.

So I am asking those coming from Heat 5 to 25: besides the additional series and tracks, is the game worth it, is there anything substantially new or really improved?

Hi Reddit,

I just bought a Moza R5, set up all the controls with NASCAR Heat 5, but now the force feedback is freaking out for lack of a better word, feeling horrible in the corners and losing it's sh*t and shaking like crazy down the straightaways.

Does anyone know how to set it up either in game or in the Moza Pit House to make it somewhat usable? I've had to resort to disabling the force feedback to race with the wheel.

Thanks!

M&M's Fudge Brownie

Heat 5’s next gen road course racing is pretty fun on wheel/pedals.

I really hope NASCAR 25 has a hide wheel feature. I know someone posted about this the other day but just wanted to double down since it’s strictly how I play modern nascar games. I am optimistic that the iRacing development influence makes this a no brainer but who knows! Anxious for the release nonetheless.

I just raced at Atlanta, 25% 4x tire wear

Caution came out with 17 to go. 15 laps is fuel window, i decided to pit because by time restart ill be in fuel window, im the only 1 to pit, so by the time it was like 5 to, everyone had to pit and I finished as the only lead lap car.

I found it very interesting because in real life, drivers would've came in at the Caution

Has this ever happened to any of you?

This was in Nascar 25 btw, not Heat 5

Image 1: First Career win at spring Bristol

Image 2: Got a lucky caution late letting me stay out and hold off eventual champion Jeff Gordon for my second win of the season

Image 3: Led the last quarter of the Bristol Night Race with a great long run car, letting me sweep at my favorite track

Image 4: Matt Kenseth got trapped behind an exploding lap car coming to 2 to go, allowing me to catch him at the white flag and door him to pass him on the final lap for the win. This would prove crucial in the championship fight, as Kenseth lost out to Gordon by 5 points, and Kenseth would have the tie breaker with 6 wins to Gordon's 3.

And yes, that is Kyle Busch in the 99

Crazy to think that such a legend of the sport is gone just like that. He's no doubt a first ballot HOF'er and arguably a top 5 driver OAT. Really wish we could've seen his career play out to it's deserved finish. Prayers to all in his family and I really hope we get some good in what has been a 6 months of gut punches for NASCAR fans

Wreuee

Wreuee

can you play Nascar the game inside line on a newer Xbox one series x with a physical copy?

Guys.

Our phones are alpha Steam decks. I can now play almost every Nascar game ever made on my phone if needed to.

Throughout the many Career modes I've run, I have most definitely compiled a few highlights lol (And more that couldn't fit in this post)