Dale Earnhardt Jr. Has been at it again, teasing future iRacing content that will bring those NASCAR Racing 2003 Season feels.
Images: iRacing/Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Gen 4 NASCAR Cup action looks to be heading its way to iRacing, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. shares images of two cars being scanned by employees of the simulation platform.
But wait – we hear you ask – is there not already a Gen 4 car available for the subscription service?
Kind of.
Image: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The ‘NASCAR Gen 4 Cup’ was born out of a happy accident, when the ARCA Menards Chevrolet Impala was mistakenly given a power bump in 2023.
ARCA is a lower tier within the NASCAR ladder, with Cup Series at the top. They run with lower power and other modifications, and in prior years, they ran with bodywork akin to the cars used back in the Cup Series’ ‘Gen 4 area’. Only long after the premier category was using newer machinery.
When, just over a year ago, a power bump was mistakenly delivered to the ARCA Menards Chevrolet Impala in iRacing, fans were then excited about driving something analogous to a Gen 4 Cup car – even if it led to overheating issues.
The Massachusetts-headquartered sim racing platform then decided to keep the power bump and update the physics, and therefore the NASCAR Gen 4 Cup was born.
But it’s ultimately a modified ARCA Chevrolet and not the actual cars that partly made the progenitor to iRacing, NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, so alluring.
That is set to change, with an image portraying scan data shared to social media by the 26-time Cup Series race winner.
The iRacing Executive Director also shared images of the Chevrolet and Ford Cup Series models from 21 years ago in the process of being captured.
The 2003 championship-winning Ford Taurus of Matt Kenseth, sponsored by DeWalt and run by Roush Racing, is one of the two set to receive a virtual reincarnation. The second is the Chevrolet Impala of Kevin Harvick used to win that season’s Brickyard 400 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
These would not complete the 2003-season grid, however, with Dodge Intrepids and Pontiac Grand Prixs also entered.
As ever with teases of this kind – of which Dale Jr. has been part of before such as the 1987 Pontiac Grand Prix – the run time from scanning to release is unclear.
Images: iRacing/Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Gen 4 NASCAR Cup action looks to be heading its way to iRacing, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. shares images of two cars being scanned by employees of the simulation platform.
But wait – we hear you ask – is there not already a Gen 4 car available for the subscription service?
Kind of.
Image: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The ‘NASCAR Gen 4 Cup’ was born out of a happy accident, when the ARCA Menards Chevrolet Impala was mistakenly given a power bump in 2023.
ARCA is a lower tier within the NASCAR ladder, with Cup Series at the top. They run with lower power and other modifications, and in prior years, they ran with bodywork akin to the cars used back in the Cup Series’ ‘Gen 4 area’. Only long after the premier category was using newer machinery.
When, just over a year ago, a power bump was mistakenly delivered to the ARCA Menards Chevrolet Impala in iRacing, fans were then excited about driving something analogous to a Gen 4 Cup car – even if it led to overheating issues.
The Massachusetts-headquartered sim racing platform then decided to keep the power bump and update the physics, and therefore the NASCAR Gen 4 Cup was born.
But it’s ultimately a modified ARCA Chevrolet and not the actual cars that partly made the progenitor to iRacing, NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, so alluring.
That is set to change, with an image portraying scan data shared to social media by the 26-time Cup Series race winner.
The iRacing Executive Director also shared images of the Chevrolet and Ford Cup Series models from 21 years ago in the process of being captured.
The 2003 championship-winning Ford Taurus of Matt Kenseth, sponsored by DeWalt and run by Roush Racing, is one of the two set to receive a virtual reincarnation. The second is the Chevrolet Impala of Kevin Harvick used to win that season’s Brickyard 400 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
These would not complete the 2003-season grid, however, with Dodge Intrepids and Pontiac Grand Prixs also entered.
As ever with teases of this kind – of which Dale Jr. has been part of before such as the 1987 Pontiac Grand Prix – the run time from scanning to release is unclear.
