SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone: Feature: A Eulogy for CART

A few games were released for consoles, such as the arcade game CART Fury. The PC also received its share of arcade racers, like Andretti Racing (for 3DFX), Newman-Haas Racing (the player’s car always won) and I think there was even a game called Al Unser’s IndyCar Racing.

The more simulation oriented releases consisted of Indy 500, IndyCar Racing 1 & 2, the latter rebranded as CART and retooled to work in Windows 95. All from the famed Papyrus Design Group (the forerunner team to iRacing). PC technology was racing forward as fast as the real cars. The earlier titles were made for DOS, whereas ICR2/CART made use of the newly invented 3D graphics adaptors in the form of the Rendition Gfx card.

Rendition cards came and went, as did 3DFX which is why CART fans with a PC and a bent for simulation have been left a little wanting since Microsoft released CART Precision Racing in 1998. Supporting D3D, it was the last commercially released CART sim for PC.

At the time it gained quite some popularity in the simulation community. The web site for this Microsoft published sim is still available, including a demo and a promo movie. Microsoft must have forgotten all about it!

Recent years have seen the release of Codemaster’s Indy Car Series 2005 based on the IRL, the sequel being released only for consoles as the Indy Car Series was worked into the TOCA Race Driver Series. You can download a video of ICS2005 here.

iDT's CCWS 2005-06 Mod for rFactor and GTR2

CART, or Champ Car for the PC was left hanging by the industry and so the community turned to CART- mods for the EA Formula 1 games as far back as F1 Championship Season 2000. In recent years one modding team has delivered much of the CART content for our driving pleasure. Team iDTreleased a standalone game based on F1 Challenge calling it Champ Car Challenge, and in rFactor team iDT has come true once again for the fan. First by releasing the ChampCar World Series (CCWS) seasons 2005-2006, and very recently the 1994 and 1995 seasons. Check rFactorCentral for the downloads.

You can now relive those tightly fought battles between Unser Jr. Fittipaldi, Mansell, Andretti, Tracy and all the other stars of CART’s heyday by downloading the iDT mod for rFactor and dwell in pure unadulterated racing nostalgia.

If you prefer GTR2 as your modding base, the CCWS 2005-2006 mod by iDT is also available for GTR2 at NoGrip Racing, and I suspect that the 1995 IndyCar mod will also appear for this sim in the not too distant future.

iDT's CCWS 2005-06 mod for rFactor and GTR2

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