You guys... SMH. lol
Well, I thought my first post might have been too vague, so let me break it down like a 90s wrestling faction:
This is not an .exe.
Oh how I WISH I had that knowledge to make this a program you could open, but I don't. So I'm working with what I got here, and so this is a file that can be opened with a free Excel knockoff known as LibreOffice Calc. To clarify more, the user needs to just download LibreOffice Calc, then open this file to use it.
You can simulate a lot of things on this file, and if you have an imagination this is really fun! All the 2002 schedules of a lot of racing series are built in to the file so that you can race your 2002 season how you want.
Maybe you're wondering, "why 2002?" Simple... It's the year I picked.
To put this simply about what you do with this, I'll insert some pictures!
First, everyone starts on the Pre-Season tab.
As you can see, you're asked some general questions about you, how much money you're starting this season off with, and how many fans.
In this example you can see we're Tony Danza! A 46-year-old male from Auburn, KY who's starting super late as a race car driver. He's got $1,500 to play with and, oh dear... :/ Just mom and dad for fans it appears.
Tony Danza can race in ANY of these divisions/tours/series as they are all built into the Racing Career: 2002 Season file.
They are:
Street Stocks (includes a generic schedule like a local race track would have)
Late Models (again, includes a typical local race track schedule)
Super Late Models (2002 CRA Sunoco Super Series schedule)
Modifieds (2002 NASCAR Featherlite Modified Tour schedule)
Northwest (2002 Raybestos Northwest Series schedule)
Midwest (2002 Re/MAX Challenge Series schedule)
Southeast (2002 Hills Bros. All Pro Series schedule)
Southwest (2002 NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour schedule)
USAR (2002 USAR Hooters Pro Cup schedule)
ASA (2002 ASA National Tour schedule)
CASCAR (2002 CASCAR Super Series schedule)
NASCAR North (2002 NASCAR Busch North Series schedule)
NASCAR West (2002 NASCAR Winston West Series schedule)
ARCA (2002 ARCA Re/MAX Series schedules)
NASCAR Truck (2002 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series schedule)
NASCAR GN (2002 NASCAR Busch Grand National Series schedule)
NASCAR Cup (2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series schedule)
So.... now what?!
Time to race as Tony Danza!
You go into NR2003 (or any game really) and race the races OR you can just use your imagination and simulate the races! Up to you
For our example, Mr. Danza has chosen to enter the 2002 NASCAR Winston West Series! Probably because he thought he should be closer to Hollywood to start an acting career, but actually because it was the shortest, easiest 2002 schedule I could manipulate in one picture to show you the whole series tab!!
The races are over, let's see how he did and I'll be able to explain what's going on with this file and some things that make the Racing Career so nifty!
Some take-aways and things to notice in this screen shot:
- At the top-left, notice Danza doesn't own
enough equipment to start his own team in the Winston West Series (though he does own a truck & trailer). Therefore his role on race day will be as a "Driver."
- In this particular series, drivers get a 35% cut of any winnings so... not bad! (that information is to the right, inside the orange "2002 Winston West Series" heading).
- At the top right are Tone-Tone's stats. They change in real-time based on each race that's ran, and will even continue over from season to season.
What the user gets to do is, via drop-down menus, select the Total Entrants, Role, and Sponsorship. Next, they race using the race stats provided. Note how you have a date, a track, the race name, the purse, the fan count, the number of laps, and (not pictured in this series as I couldn't find it) below the date is even a cell for time/time of day so you know if the race should be held at a day track or a night track (or even what hour of the day for fancy AI iRacers).
After the user's virtual race ends they open up the sheet and select via drop-downs their finishing position and the status of their car (with many status' to choose from that affect the sheet including even "Start & Park").
Let's analyze the graphic above and check out what happened. I made up that Tony gets three races for this Winston West team and they're all at big tracks!
We see that Danza finished 3rd at California, and 7th place at Kansas which upped Tony's "D Rating" to two stars!
Understand that
many two star tiered sponsors noticed ol' Tone, but Big Lots was the lucky chosen one for Vegas. Notice how for the last race of the series at Las Vegas, Big Lots expectation was a Top 3 finish. Tony must have thought he could repeat or better his Kansas success...
However
We see he blew it.
Yes, worse than being flipped in a go-kart race on your own TV show, Tony not only crashed the car in practice (having to bring out a backup car), but he finished running, but poorly, with the backup car.
That's his three races unfortunately. Where does he go from here? Not sure.
At the bottom of the tab we find a total of all of his 2002 Winston West series results under "Series Statistics."
Out of three starts his average finish was 13.7. He gained over $7,000 dollars to his bank account, but he actually lost fans. At the top right in the "Driver Statistics" bar, he has -17 fans. I mean, he just started his career and we know of 17 people that think he should stop racing? That's harsh.
Tip: don't simulate the sheet as Danica Patrick.
So that's an example of what a Series sheet looks like. All the data in the Series sheets came from the web. Some is fudged due the data for things like fans and prize money just plain and simple not existing, but a ton is for real.
You may also notice two other tabs before the actual Series tabs and those are Garage:
This is where you buy and sell race cars, equipment, and even hire personnel to get you on your way to owning your own team.
Note: once you own all of the needed assets to own a team in a specific Series, your Role on race day in that series now expands as you can select not only "Driver," but also "Owner" or "Both" (represents a driver/owner).
The other tab is Calendar shown here:
This is where EVERY race in EVERY series is shown so that, if you'd like to, you can pick and choose where and what to race based on the prize money, location, or date! Maybe you only want to race the big money races to start your own team next year in 2003. Maybe you want to race every race in chronological order. Maybe you only want to race at "Raceways" and not "Speedways!" Look, the point is it's all the races in the 2002 season (almost 350 races!) and you can sort them all by the headings above!
So that's my long post. Just thought I could get away with my first post and people would get it. Not the way to do it.
Am I on the right road here?
What do people think?
What would be a neat feature?
...Am I the only one that thinks this looks fun?
* crickets *
