Golden Sands Speedway for NASCAR Racing 2003, N2002 and NASCAR 4     
Brian Zager
http://www.geocities.com/nascar2002/nascar2002.html
3/26/03

New in N2003 version
-----------------------------
When you drive down pit road on the N2002 version in N2003 you will get DQ'ed for driving backwards on the track.  I have created an updated version for N2003 to address this and other problems as well as update some of the graphics for N2003.  This version is NOT compatible with the N2002 version online and this version will not load in N2002.

Updates:
- Pit road no longer runs as far backwards but instead runs out away form the track farther.
- More room to enter pits because center lane of tires is further away from entrance
- Pit road is less crowded than before (although it still can be crowded it with a large field)
- You can go though the new pit road in less time than the old one making it easier to make stops under caution without losing a lap.  Pit road speed limit also upped to 55 mph.
- Pace car speed upped to 20 mph for faster yellow flags
- New solar effects in N2003 now display correctly (Solar glare, Track Specular Highlights, etc.)
- New track, grass, and fence textures
- Added shadows
- Areas that have low lighting are darkened now in the night version.
- Track logo and Track backgrounds now display correctly in N2003. New track background for night version
- Newspaper picture now displays car in victory lane correctly in N2003
- Cars can now go over fences/walls/signs/trees.  This probably won't happen in regular race conditions, only in cases of warp where cars get very airborne or if you are trying to go over them on purpose ;-)
- S/F line now in correct spot (if anyone noticed before the paint was 2 feet off of where the game scored it in the old version)
- When you hit the far inside of the corners your car usually won't go flying though the air across the track like it used to always do.  I can't guarantee that it won't happen at all anymore though because if you hit it just right it may still happen.
- Full pace lap now starts cars on pit road.
- Total race length changed to 500 laps.
- Added 2 billboards in turn 3.
- New replay camera angels.

Info about the track
------------------------
Golden Sands Speedway is a 1/3 mile oval located between Plover and Wisconsin Rapids on Hwy 54 in Central Wisconsin.  It is my first attempt to recreate a real track.  I tried to be as accurate as possible when making this track.  I felt the best way to do this was with satellite photos, the info provided on their website, and pictures I have here and form websites.  For more info about the track visit http://www.goldensandsspeedway.com.  Some things, however, can't be done completely accurately.  I have very limited knowledge of making 3dos so some objects are the closest matches I could find from the game.  The bigest challenge was making a pit road outside the track.

Pit Notes:
---------------
Go to http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/pitroad.jpg for a screenshot of the pit road in N2003.  When you drive outside turn 2 to enter the pits there are 2 lanes.  You must enter on the right side or you will get black flagged for going the wrong way down the pits.  You then drive to the end, turn left, come back the other way and exit on the right side.  One other note on pit road if you’re pitting on the left side of pit road there will be no wall between you and the crew.  Just make sure you stay left of the white line in this case and you shouldn't have any problems.  

Note:  When driving into the pits if the yellow comes out and your spotter does not tell you it is ok to make your stop (usually happens if yellow comes out before you reach where the stalls begin) pit road will close and you will receive a black flag if you stop in your pit stall.  If you just drive right though pit road without stopping there should be no problem.

AI Notes:  
-----------
Brian Suber helped in the creation of the lp files, however, the ai will not pit properly because of the pit road design.  They might be raceable with a few cars but they will not work with yellow flags on.  The problem is that when they are in the low line coming off turn 4 they slow down a lot or even stop sometimes and it usually results in a crash.  I've spent quite a bit of time trying to fix this with no luck so unless some new tools come out for editing them or someone is willing to help me out with them this is the best they will get.  E-mail me at lrzager@wctc.net if you'd interested in helping fix them.  Until then the track is mainly intended for online play.

N2003 Screenshots
-----------------------
Day:  http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/backstraight.jpg
      http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/track.jpg
      http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/frontstraighday.jpg
      http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/backstraight2.jpg
      http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/pitroad.jpg
      http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/turn1.jpg
      http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/newspaper.jpg

Night:  http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/infield.jpg
        http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/wallcam.jpg
        http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/frontstraightnight.jpg
        http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/turns1and2.jpg
        http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/truns3and4.jpg
        http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/victory.jpg
        http://www.geocities.com/brianz111/nascar2003/background.jpg

Download:
-------------

http://www.w3kn.com/#tracks - N2003, N2002, N4 day and night versions available here.

http://www.theuspits.com/sims/nascar_racing/tracks.html -  N2003 and N2002 day and night versions.  Listed in the tracks section for N2002/N2003.

Please do not make a direct link to any of these files but instead link to this page.  If you would like to host any of these files please e-mail me at lrzager@wctc.net first.

Please report any bugs you find that are not already mentioned in this readme to lrzager@wctc.net.

Installation for N2003:
--------------------------

1.  Delete any previous version of the track you installed in N2003.
2.  Unzip to your tracks directory and enjoy!


Installation for N4/N2002:
----------------------------
Night:
1.  Make a new folder in your tracks folder called golden_sands_night.
2.  Unzip the zip file to this new folder.

Day:
1.  Make a new folder in your tracks folder called golden_sands.
2.  Copy and paste all files from the golden_sands_night folder to the golden_sands folder.
3.  Unzip the file to the golden_sands folder and overwrite any files when asked.
4.  In the golden_sands folder rename the files golden_sands_night.dat and golden_sands_night.cam to golden_sands.dat and golden_sands.cam.

Note:  For N4/N2002 you must have the night version for your game in order to install the day version.

Both day and night versions can be installed by simply unzipping to your tracks folder in the versions available at The US Pits.  You don't need to have the night version to install the day version here.

Thanks to:
--------------

Fred Anderson at http://www.speedcircuit.com for his xml to ptf converter and the tutorials at his site.  Without these my track building wouldn't be possible.

The tutorials at http://www.igcomputers.net/nascar4/track_making/ and TazChris9 at the forum there for helping me work out some bumps I ran into along the way.

Klaus Hörbrand for his WinMip 2 utility for creating mip files: http://www.horbra.de/winmip/

Matt Todd at http://www.geocities.com/wogggieee/ for many good pictures of the track and allowing me to use them for the background pictures.

CenterLine a great track editing uttility that came out after I finished the N2002 version but helped alot in the updates for the N2003 version: http://home.attbi.com/~axaptacoder/

http://www.goldensandsspeedway.com/ for the info on the track dimensions and for more pictures.

Brian Suber for making lp files.

http://www.w3kn.com/ and http://www.theuspits.com/ for hosting the files

Scott Hessey for creating the default setups for N2003.

rocknjr form the Sierra forum for hosting online beta tests.

Papyrus for making the sim that makes it all possible.

Anything else I may have forgotten (I'm sure there is something out there I forgot)

Brian Zager
http://www.geocities.com/nascar2002/nascar2002.html
3/26/03