🎵 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and I'm joined by my co-host Dave. Hello Dave. Hello George. Welcome race car fans. Today we're going to explore a game that doesn't... what the george you keep hitting the start button george it's on oh i did that yeah they they change the start button and they put it on the top instead of on the cabinet george oh boy oh boy let's just keep going with it anyway standing in front of dale jr this is an offshoot i guess you would call of the game built in 2005 called nascar oh thank you that's okay i don't have to yell you're welcome enough of that music okay we're standing in front of dale jr it's a game that was produced after the run of nascar which i believe was done in 2005. The folks that appeared on NASCAR were Rusty Wallace, Ricky Rudd, and Kevin Harvick. It's a Pat Lawler game. Dave, first question out of the box. Are you a NASCAR fan? No, I don't really like to go fast and turn left. I go fast and turn right, so it's the opposite of what I do. folks this is definitely a game aimed at someone who is into nascar i'll be up front i don't know a lot about nascar obviously i've heard of dale jr i know his pedigree but beyond that i'm sorry the only thing i know is kevin harvick is the one out of the three in the original game that's still racing kevin hart the comedian no not kevin hart kevin harvick oh okay this is one of the few games that we actually know the production numbers from stern they made 600 of this game dave do you know you should because you just said it do you know what the uh marketing slogan is for this game? Race like Dale. Be really cool. Close. Let's go racing. Okay, well, that says it all, too, I guess. I asked you, and obviously I'm not going to tell, what you paid for this game. But I went out and tried to do some homework on this. I don't know how up-to-date this is. And again, there's only 600 of them. So I'm sure they don't come up for sale that often. What do you think the average price on Pinside for this game is? Say $4,500. $2,900. Wow. For this year too? Let's put it this way, folks. You're not buying a nice Stern game like this for $2,900. I don't care what the title is. They don't exist. And if they do, they're probably ratted out. This is a really, really nice home use version of the game. It's all chromed out too. Yeah. Let's talk about what I hit. The start button. Is this configuration with the lockdown bar what they use on today's games or have they changed it? They changed it. Because this looks like what I would call a traditional lockdown bar from the games that we collect. Except for that dopey start button, which just looks very out of place. It is a dopey start button. I don't know why. So they didn't drill a cabinet to put a start button like they usually do everywhere else. They decided to put it on top of here, maybe like a start button in your car, and you hit the button and go. I don't know what they were thinking. But in 2007, you didn't really have that. So the problem is when you want to get inside the game, take the glass off and service the flippers or whatever, you have to – I'll show you, George. Go like this. You're going to take this off. And when you take this off, you really can't take it off because you're connected. Oh, it's all water. So you have to actually undo this connector here to take this off. Well, at least they put a connector on it. Do you know how many times people just, like, take this off and rip it off? Oh, and yank it. Oh, I've done it many times myself. But luckily, it's like a breakaway-free thing here that actually will let you do it without breaking anything. So that's good. But I'm not a big fan of that engineering marvel right there. I would have had a button right there in the cabinet like they're supposed to do. I'm not a big fan of that one they've done it several times in games it's more of a tournament button but not a start button I think they want it there for you know you start in the car starting the race now you purchased this game recently correct? yes and I was correct in that it is a home use only game it is home use only yes did the person who sold it to you replace it with something else? no they bought it for their the father of the household is really into fast cars. He has some really nice cars. High-end stuff. And his son is also into the same thing. So they bought the son years ago when he was younger. This game, brand new. And also some other stuff. So a lot of racing attire. But he kind of got older. He was done with it. Now he has like a little sit-down racer thing he has instead that he uses. Gotcha. This game was also manufactured for Formula One, I believe, for the European market. Know anything about that? Yeah, Grand Prix, I think they called it. Okay, okay. Here's another tidbit. I came up short with a lot of information on this. There's not a lot out there. Flicking through the channels last night, are you aware that Dale Jr. has a TV show? I did not know that, George. the uh prelude i guess to it is or the description is life of a broadcaster and race car driver doesn't sound i'm not gonna really rush to my uh i thought about it for a second and no i didn't watch it folks but it's on the uh nbc sports network so if you have an affinity for dale jr you can go out there and uh and take a watch dare i say our podcast has better ratings could it be uh it might very well and that's not saying a lot let's uh let's let's shift to the game uh again we're down in dave's basement no i'm not going to play the song this time even though i probably should uh standing in front of the game uh the first thing that comes to mind dave is there doesn't seem to be a whole heck of a lot in this game although i'm intrigued by the test car mechanism it kind of reminds me of something we did recently does it um hitting rudy in the mouth no that goes up and down does it not it does you know what you're right george Led Zeppelin, up and down spinner thingy. So, the only other game that I heard somebody talk about that mechanism or a hybrid of it was Iron Man. Yep. Have they used this mech other than in that game in Led Zeppelin? Well, that makes sense because this game was made around the same time as Iron Man. Oh, it was? Yep. Okay. But I would say Iron Man and Led Zeppelin is more of a gradual up and down thing. This thing here is a violin. Ka-chink, ka-chunk, up and down. You know, it's like chunky, chunky, chunky. Okay, well, maybe they learned. The one thing that is just driving me completely nuts right now is the car hauler in the back. If that isn't the cheapest looking thing. It's a box. It's wonderful, George. Come on. It's a box. It has lights in it. Come on. Now, again, I don't know anything about this game, folks. and please don't shoot me if you got one and you listen. I'm sorry. But when you listen to us you not listening to us to fawn over everything We going to just tell you honest what we think of it Why wouldn you put a nice molded sculpt in there And, you know, put a regular, you know, nice looking car hauler on there. It would look really, it would look a lot better than that thing. But it has a Budweiser kind of effect on it. And besides George Bush. What do you mean it's got a Budweiser effect? Well, it looks like Budweiser. It looks like a Budweiser truck, doesn't it? But it's not. But it looks like Budweiser to me. No, it looks like a car hauler for Dale Jr. That's what it looks like. Well, there is something cool behind that. There's little two cars that go round and round behind that are made of metal that you hit. Look, if fireworks don't shoot out of the back of that thing, it's really lame. Well, there could be smoke shooting out of the back if you don't service your game properly. Okay. So that's one of the quote-unquote features of this game. other than that are those stand-up or drop targets on the right those are drop time we get three drop targets george okay they actually spent some money we have two ramps i see a couple i see one spinner i'm guessing non-optical because we have two spinners oh we got two i didn't see that one okay what is this scanner t-shirt thing on the with the flag with the finish line flag what what does that thing do that's like a merch store so you go in there and you get does that thing wave around once you go in there kind of waves back and forth like a little like like a checkered flag waving the flag when you go around it's kind of like hey it's uh last lap or something you know these nascar i'm underwhelmed okay well well george does have an led thing here when you lock the balls when you hit this freaking goes clank and it goes down here it locks the ball here it knows when the balls they're a little off to little things come up I think we've already lost half our audience because we're describing this. Why don't we... George, the test car there, it's a gray test car. That thing looks so lame. George, George, it's beautiful. Come on, it has a gray plastic thing to it. Why wouldn't you put a regular race car there? But see, when you have a test car, George, they... Oh, you're testing it to crash it or whatever. Right, you're going to crash it so they can't put new paint on it. They're going to have this... It's called a mule. They call these cars mules. This game better start doing some things when we turn it on, because so far, I don't even know if I would put money in this if I saw it. If I was going to keep this game, I would change the test car and put one of those die-cast Mustang 60s Fastback cars there and bash the crap out of that and see the paint fly off it and stuff. That'd be kind of cool. What do you think, George? No. I'm a charger. It should be Dale Earnhardt's car painted like Dale Earnhardt's car, not looking. It just looks. But then you're going to smack Dale Earnhardt's car. It's going to get dented. But he's going to want to test drive his cars before he goes out in racism. Anyway, we're getting caught up in the morass here. What is that boost up on the right? What does that thing do? This guy here? Yeah. He's a ramp diverter. So that'll shift over here. so the ball comes down to the left flipper or over here. Didn't we have one of these in one of the other games we reviewed? Yes. Roller Coaster Tycoon, did that have it? Funhouse, I believe, has it. Okay, but Roller Coaster Tycoon. I don't think that game has it. No? Okay. But it has multiple high ramps and habit trails and stuff. As you can tell, folks, I'm a little confused yet again because of all these newer games, even though this one is, what, 14 years old? Yes. This game does have one unique feature I do like. When you start the game, the ball goes around and around on the outside track. And when you get multiball, the same thing happens. It's going round and round while you're playing multiball inside track. Let's talk about that for a minute. So that track you speak of is below the flippers of the game. That's right. What is that gigantic opening? Is that just... that's the out hole so that's it that's an out hole yeah when it goes down there goodbye yeah very odd looking so does the does this thing that goes around have an accelerator is that what this thing is right here does it have some way of making it go fast around they call it gigantic hole the maw or maybe they don't i just named it the maw but anyway the uh the accelerator The accelerator, the upper, lower left and upper right have giant coils there, magnetic coils. Right. Accelerators. So the ball hits there, hits a little opto, and boom, turns it on. So it flings it out to the next magnet, but flings it around, around, around, until the diverter on the right-hand side of the field opens up, and it comes out and hits a test car. Hits a smash car right there. Okay. Now I have to see this. So why don't you start a game? I'll let you start this time. Okay. and I will try to follow. I don't know how well I'll do, but I'll try to follow. And as always with these games, you have to punch the ball and use your flippers, just like in Episode 1 of Star Wars. Here we go. It's a beautiful day for racing. Player 2 has joined the field. Here we go, George. Now, is that voice Dale Earnhardt? No. That might be Dale Earnhardt there, or Dale Earnhardt Light. I'm not quite sure. Okay, so that thing went up. How did you get that test car up? You hit it? That one... I think I hit it. I keep hitting it. See? Hit it again. I got in the garage. Okay, so there's a gobble hole next to it. That's called the garage. It's a hauler ride. Oh, okay. Now I see those... Yeah, I see the cars with the car hauler. What happens if you hit one of them when you go up that ramp? Like that? Watch that. It locks the ball for you. There we go, eighth place. How did you just... Okay, you got a lot of things all at once. This action this game, George, is some good action. Well, if you like multiball, folks, you're going to like this game because you got multiball in like two seconds. The only one I saw faster was Guns N' Roses. Or was that Led Zeppelin? It was probably both. This generation, when they came in this part, were short attention span theaters, so they had to get right to the meat of the matter quickly. I'm still underwhelmed. Okay. Okay, I'm stepping up to the plate here, folks. Let's see what I can do. Oh, shit. Pardon me. Why did it do that? It's going around the frickin' track going left, George. Woo-hoo, George. Woo. You need some spinners. That's it, George. There's your ball one. That was pretty sad. I tweaked the spinners the best I could. So they do spin for a good long time for whatever I had to work with here. So micro switches, not the easiest thing to tweak. Okay, I wasn't expecting the around the track thing to start. Okay, the car hauler actually does have something that's redeemable in that you can hit the cars that are spinning around. That's unique. Okay, so you went in there, but you didn't hit it. I didn't hit it. And again, you got in there, but you didn't hit it. I got 50 miles, though. I keep getting miles. I'm getting miles in my... Okay, so... Airline pilot thing, here we go. Airline miles. So there's another metric that you're trying to get around the track, I'm guessing, to some degree? Yeah, I just keep going in there. There's a lot. You want to collect race by, you know, basically shoot for the flashy things. That's what I normally do. Shoot for the flashy things. Okay, so I'm going to get it in gear. Now it's going to go flying around the track, and now it's going to finally come out. And I hit the... All right, there's a little winning flag there. Oh, that was awful. Awful. Awful, George. I still don't get the test card thing. You think he bashed you? Wait, what? You're off. It hasn't done anything. Well, I think you have to wait until it says you have to do it. I think you have to go to a mode. We have to probably hit a mode here. I think I hit the... If I start race... Is that a... What do they call that thing? A neutron ball? A thing of a... Newtonian. Newton ball. Newtonian ball. I think a neutron ball is. Our fans are the best. I think Jackpot... Jackpot needs to go, too. You missed everything! I missed everything! No way! Yeah, that sounds like me. I missed everything right there! Come on Skeeter You up Skeeter Yeah that mech is super clunky Okay Round and round we go Where she stops nobody knows Oh there you go. Okay and I finally hit something. Eighth place. By hitting those cars you move up. Okay where's it come out? Same place? Same place. Welcome to happy hour folks. Happy hour. Go ahead and hit the spinner. So hit the spinner shot and then you get happy hour. What the heck is going on? Hit the garage. Seven of spades George. Nice going. For nothing. For nothing George. Okay, spinner shot. There you go happy hour. In field value. The campers are all beeping. They're all RVing out. I had the real NASCAR experience here, George. Okay, so I hit the test car. I don't know what that did. I think you go hit the garage. You go in the hole. You hit the car and then go in the hole, I think. Well, close. There you go, George. Any ramps for Superfan Jackpot. This would be an official ramp game, George. For nothing. I don't need to be reminded of that, you know. I made a comeback. You did? Do you want some more of that, George? Let's try one more time. Now compare this after music with the Black Knight after music. It's not even a race. that wasn't a pun either are you saying Dale Jr. could not take Black Knight 2000 I'm going to make the following statement it's a unique person who is going to buy this game this is you've got to really love NASCAR it's a small audience I think that's why they only made 600 of them but it's limited edition and it has a special tag in the back too metal tag dale jr is gonna have to pop out of the back glass for me to buy one of these things with a bikini or not no not with a bikini let's hope not this is a trip you've got to be a dale fan this is a tribute to dale i mean i got it there's probably one he's got tvs to show so he could definitely sell 600 games i think actually re-theming this game to be like you know they re-themed that star trek ballet star trek they made the alternate universe star trek i actually We could make a Dale Jr. dark side and put like a goatee on him on the back glass and have like Dark Dale. What do you think? What, and put horns on him? No, just put a little black goatee. So he's kind of more evil. Oh, you could do that. I mean, you could get the Sharpie out. You could give him whatever he wants. He's already got the sunglasses, so you don't have to do that. I'll put some red LEDs behind the sunglasses, kind of like a Terminator 2 with the eyes showing behind it. You can put lipstick on a pig, but sorry. Still not talking to work, huh, George? It's still a pig. All right, well, here we go. One more time. I'm not doing a very good job in helping you sell this game. I know, George. Work with me here. Work with me. Hey. I like that thing. As Gary Stern said, you know, what's his favorite Stern game? He says the one that's on the line. Exactly. So, there you go. It would be interesting to hear how many of the actual NASCARs they did make. So when we go to our next pinball show, we'll have to see if there's one of these. It's not the Dale game, but at least the NASCAR game. I mean, I would ask you to record sounds from this, but I'll be honest. I could just turn on the NASCAR on Sunday and let it run for about a minute or two. I got the same sounds. Good. There's a big payback at the end of this line. Big payback, huh? I'm still... That test car thing. Sorry. Don't like it? No, it hasn't done anything. You gotta hit the prop! I mean, it goes up. So what? I don't know. No, George. No, no. Sorry, I'm not convinced, Dave. Even my re-theme's not going to work. No re-theme. You played okay. What did you do with five million? I'm going to re-theme it to Dale Dark Jr. Dark Dale. Dark Dale Jr. Dirk Diggler. A Dirk Diggler journey. Yeah, I like that. We'll go with that one. Dirk Diggler. Mass car driver. Why did I just get another ball? That's a ramp game, George. That's what they do. I am so... You're doing so well right now without even knowing what you're doing. Amazing. I am so confused. Look at George. You're hitting all kinds of stuff. There's beeping going on and everything. Here you go. You're in ninth place. You're going around and around the track again. I don't know where you went to. I never heard that quote before oh wait I just did oh there we go got something no there you go hit the garage right there come on Skeeter bump and run bash the test car hit the test car over and over again oh there he goes Get that darn test car. Hold on. Go get some Coors Bay here while you're at it. Oh, come on. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's how you lock the ball, I think. Oh, no, you didn't. It's going to roundy-round again. No, no, no, no, no. Just a good old boy. I actually like that, that it doesn't come screaming back. They must have, in testing, that must have been horrible. Okay. Well, the Duke boys got in trouble again, while Daisy slips into something comfortable. I did pretty good there. Yes? Yes. I got 12 million? Yes, you did, George. You are cranking. Look at you go. George, you need to buy this game from me. You need this game in your collection. Maybe I'm changing my mind. You need this game. Tony. Yeah, watch. You're going to stop me now. I already see it coming. Dave's holding back. I must break you. I'm going to F you up. Oh, wrong game. Wrong game. I like that one. Oh, yeah. Here we go. Our fans are going to really begin to wonder. What happened to our classic pinball? They're playing ramp games all day. What's going on? We said that when you get games in that we haven't done, good or bad, there have been some stinkers, the word I would have used. It's like, hey, all you classic volley people or bally people. Silver ball mania, what's up with that? What is up with that? Up with people. Three. Oh, you suck. If I gauge by the number of listeners, it's not a favorite game. Even the doggy game Nitro Ground Shaker came around. Really? Yeah, people actually listened to it. Wow, all right. Okay, Dave's almost close to me, and I'm on ball two. Nine million to 12 million. And we're on ball two. George is on ball two right now. Close game. Okay. No, no, no, no, no. No, come on. I think he's shooting at the end of ball save. Ball save, I think. Yep, ball save. There you go. Okay. That's the only thing that's worth hitting. Our fans are the best. Our fans are the best. And I really do stink. You missed everything. Just a good old boy. You know how many people in the South are cursing us today? They should redo Dukes of Hazzard with this. There's an... Cue the Dukes of Hazzard music. Them college boys up there in New Hampshire and Massachusetts F them They don know how to go around the track over and over again to lift Yeah, let's just prey on the stereotypes. Not true. I know quite a few professionals who were into NASCAR. George kicked my butt. I only get $10 million, he's working on $14 million right now. Yeah, what that got me. George is a closet ramper, folks. Okay, wave the flag, whatever that is. You can get lit outlanes. Bro. Spinner shot for you. There you go. Who tweaked those spinners? Shoot the left ramp! Shoot the left ramp! Oh, it's going to lock up. No, no, no, no, no. The lock-up ball is for the left ramp. Oh, you were a little late in the fun, but you got that. Oh! I have no idea what's going on here. How many balls do you get? You get three. So shoot the spinners and shoot the rim. I'm just trying to keep it going. You want to shoot the spinners. Whenever you can. Real multiball. George is going crazy here. there you go checkered flag look at this look at him go you might get the high score in this puppy let's see he's going places george always needs to own this game maybe george does own this game maybe that's what yeah i'm a closet nascar i knew it free game for you you got a free game that's how high your score is Oh, ramp. He just ramped. Oh, lost the wall. Hey, not too bad, though. I think he's going to do pretty good here. Great job right there. Who wait? This driver is unstoppable. You're unstoppable, George. Oh, another one. 20. Your initials. Great job. Okay, initials. Left, right, and then start button locks. You can do ten if you want. You can do ten positions if you want. Oh, I can? You can put George right in if you want to. Oh, gee. How come I didn't get the kid? Oh, go one more and hit the start button. Oh, that's what I need to do. Okay. And then just go to space button. No, hang on. No, don't hit that. You want to do more? Yeah, space. Okay, now hit this all the way over. Keep going and it'll go all the way over. You know what I'm saying? Oh, you've got to put some muscle there. You only have three spots at this point. Oh, George wins? Is that what you're going to do? George won. Oh, I see what you're doing there. I see what you did there, George. George won. Nice. Very nice. I couldn't put number one in, so I put George W-O-N. I see. Yeah. Let's see how you did in the... See, you shouldn't have told me that it had ten spaces. I shouldn't have. That's right. I have to beat that score down now. I got 19. Oh, George is 20. Number two is 28. number one is 29 by me okay so it's 44 is a grand champion for somebody who never played the game before pretty good well at least i do better on this game than my games at home i've been playing harlem globetrotters that game just hates me and i usually play it once play it great and put it away you got a nice classic ballet collection in your place but that's the game i go to is harlem because it's the only game i don't have set up right now so i play that one in your place anyway i think we're done with this i don't even want to play a third game all right so uh do you are you nicknamed bowen luke duke now with this game or we're not going to do that george who bowen luke duke the dukes of hazards cue the music jump the good old boy did you uh did you see john schneider on tv today no i did not how's he his his general got wrecked no because his house is in louisiana so i thought he got wrecked he jumped over something he shouldn't jump over the lake or something they showed they showed a picture of the general lee in the front yard with a tree on it then they showed a picture of the general lee another one up in the tree now i don't know if somebody photoshopped the one up in the tree because the one up in the tree looked like nothing had been done to it like it looked brand new they photoshopped like he basically did a jump and landed in the tree i like that better it's a But he did end up having one of his cars, you know, not survive Ida. Ida, is that it? Ida. So anyway, all you folks down in Louisiana, if we have any of you down there. Sorry, that was lousy. And all you people in New Jersey and New York, crazy. I've never seen anything quite like that. And I didn't have a too bad New Hampshire. I'm guessing not so bad here as well. Except 16 years ago, right? 16 years of the day? with the same thing 16 years to the day. That's kind of spooky. A little spooky. Well, if there's nothing else, Dave, I'm going to say goodbye to our audience and stay tuned for another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast coming to you soon. Looking forward to it, George. Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E! Yeah, Dave! Dave! Right. Dr. Dave's Pinball Restorations restores games to look and play like the first day that hit the arcade. Buy a piece of your childhood back with one of the following games in our restoration queue. If you're looking for that late model pinball machine, well we currently have three available. A Stern NASCAR, the rare limited edition Dale Jr. with only 600 made. For Bally, we have a Doctor Who and a Twilight Zone. And for your classic pinball fans, we have the following Ballys. A Kiss, Supersonic, Paragon, Skateball, Flash Gordon, Embryon, and Fireball 2. For classic Stern, we have Sea Witch, Stingray, and Nineball. For Williams, we have a Firepower. Atari, we have a Superman. Gottlieb Old School EMs Top Score and a Flipper Pull and for Bally Old School Electromechanicals we have a Bally Captain Fantastic and a Bally Flip Flop guitar solo Talladega, Alabama Hot day in the fall And his pedal to the metal Fittin' off the wall The guy was passin' Marley The tip just took the lead He's burnin' up the track But the guy becomes number three Movin' to the inside Listen to that engine howl Just movin' on over the Till the thing is on the ground Push it down, stand on it, put it on the floor Roll it down the back stretch, I'm going off that door You can look the asphalt, you can look the miles They're bringing out the checkers like the crowd is going wild Carolina country boys always find a way to win. Your way, bye-bye. There's him, a neighbor, a son, and a man. The man living business when he got behind the wheel. I like it.