Episode 101 - Best Game Ever: NASCAR

Wedgehead Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·55m 41s·held·Sep 22, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Wedgehead praises underrated 2005 Nascar as design masterpiece despite low Pinside ranking.

Summary

Wedgehead A Pinball Podcast dedicates Episode 101 to NASCAR, a 2005 Stern pinball game designed by Pat Lawlor and team that sold 3,500 units plus 600 Dale Jr... LE variants and 500 Grand Prix variants. Despite ranking #225 on Pinside, the hosts argue it is severely underrated, highlighting its iconic circular track spectacle, expert design team (Lawler, Louis Koziarz, John Krutsch, Greg Dunlap, Chris Granner, John Youssi), unique two-flipper fan layout (the only one Lawler ever designed), and sophisticated playfield engineering with numerous diverters. The game is contextualized as a post-9/11 American patriotism time capsule that reflects the sport's peak popularity in 2005.

Key Claims

NASCAR sold 3,500 units plus 600 Dale Jr... LE variants and 500 Grand Prix variants
high confidence · Host stated directly; this is foundational data for the episode
NASCAR ranks #225 on Pinside
high confidence · Host explicitly states this ranking as justification for why the game deserves a dedicated episode
Pat Lawlor designed NASCAR at the peak of NASCAR's popularity in 2005
high confidence · Host: 'which is when, at the literal peak of NASCAR's popularity, Stern was able to secure the license and hand it to legendary designer and NASCAR fan Pat Lawlor'
NASCAR is Pat Lawlor only two-flipper game and only fan layout design
high confidence · Host explicitly confirms: 'This is literally the only time he ever did a two flipper game. The only time he ever did a fan layout'
John Krutsch holds multiple patents focused on lift ramps and worked on every Pat Lawlor game through NASCAR
high confidence · Host: 'He holds a lot of patents, including many focused on lift ramps' and 'he worked on every Pat Lawlor game through NASCAR. This was his last game credit.'
The circular track on NASCAR serves primarily as spectacle but also functions as a physical ball lock during multiball
high confidence · Host explains the track's dual purposes: spectacle and mechanical function during multiball gameplay
Post-9/11 patriotism drove NASCAR's sports popularity peak, which Stern capitalized on for the pinball license
medium confidence · Host: 'an unexpected consequence of the terrorist attack was a massive swell of patriotism in Americans' which shaped NASCAR popularity, enabling Stern to secure license
NASCAR features a state-changing center bash toy, unusual for Pat Lawlor games of that era
high confidence · Host notes this is 'not something you see on a ton of pack games up to this point' but appears in NASCAR and Roadshow

Notable Quotes

“NASCAR is a very good and very underrated and most importantly, very fun game with a lot of unique features and more thought put into it than most players might give it credit for.”
Host (Alex) @ ~10:30 — Core thesis statement for why the episode exists despite low Pinside ranking
“if someone tries to say they genuinely don't like any Pat Lawlor games, they're lying or trying to be a contrarian.”
[name withheld pending review] @ ~13:15 — Assertion about Lawler's broad appeal across all player demographics
“John Krutsch might be the single most pivotal and influential person in pinball history that zero people talk about.”
[name withheld pending review] @ ~16:45 — Recognition of underrated mechanical engineer; frames Jobs/Wozniak dynamic with Lawler
“It is not a safe delivery at all... they chose to just throw it in there at the bash toy and like get you right in there which i love”
[name withheld pending review] @ ~23:20 — Illustrates deliberate design choice for player immersion via aggressive ball delivery from track
“Spectacle was worth whatever this cost. It was an insane use of the bill of materials... in 2005, Spectacle was worth whatever this cost.”
[name withheld pending review] @ ~25:45 — Explains business context: Stern was profitable enough post-LOTR/Simpsons to justify expensive spectacle
“it really did lead to the rising popularity of nascar i think and nascar being super popular gave birth to this game”
Host (Alan) @ ~5:20 — Confirms causal link between 9/11 patriotism surge and NASCAR sport popularity enabling pinball license
“This is the fastest games Pat ever designed... it plays snappy and fast... it's effectively a narrow body, much like a narrow narrow body.”
[name withheld pending review] @ ~31:00 — Explains how track design compresses playfield, creating speed anomaly for wide body format

Entities

Pat LawlorpersonJohn KrutschpersonLouis KoziarzpersonGreg DunlappersonChris GrannerpersonJohn Youssiperson

Signals

?
design_philosophy: NASCAR prioritizes spectacle (circular magnetic track) over functional necessity; track exists primarily for visual/kinetic impact and memorable player experience in location play, with secondary function as ball-holding mechanism during multiball. Hosts frame this as beautiful pre-2010s design philosophy increasingly rare in modern pinball due to BOM constraints.
high · Host: 'It required a massive amount of re-engineering... Everything on this fucking launch lane, everything on this game was impacted by the choice to put in this track. And it is primarily for spectacle... that's kind of like a beautiful thing that we don't see in modern pinball'
?
design_innovation: NASCAR achieves unusually fast gameplay for a wide-body format by using the circular track to compress available playfield real estate, creating snappy ball movement and tight orbits similar to Steve Ritchie designs despite not being a traditional narrow-body.
high · Host: 'this effectively compresses the rest of the play field, which leads to one of the fastest games Pat ever designed... it's like a narrow, narrow body. And it plays like it.'
?
historical_signal: NASCAR's 2005 release directly enabled by post-9/11 surge in American patriotism and NASCAR sport popularity reaching peak in 2005; Stern capitalized on this exact cultural moment to secure IP license and greenlight expensive spectacle production.
high · Host: 'at the literal peak of NASCAR's popularity, Stern was able to secure the license... NASCAR rode the post-9-11 American public's love for burning gasoline to a new height of popularity and became the second most popular sport in the country by 2005'
~
sentiment_shift: Podcast positions NASCAR as severely underrated despite #225 Pinside ranking; hosts argue casual dismissal of game due to theme and spectacle-focused design obscures sophisticated playfield engineering and design intent; attempting to shift community perception upward.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.167

0:00

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me double shot, it's all new! NBC Sports welcomes you to the NASCAR Winston Cup season finale. It's the New Hampshire 300 presented by the new movie Behind Enemy Lines. It is a beautiful... in the dark days episode pinball stumbled a bit leaving the 1990s gary was doing his best to keep things alive as we entered the new millennium things were looking optimistic for a second but then yep you called it 9-11 happened can you can you describe 9-11 to our some of our younger listeners might not really be aware of it that's true i guess can you contextualize that yeah for For any of our young listeners, I'll put this in pinball context. 9-11 was sort of like if Gottlieb flew an airplane into Bally Williams. So Bally Williams decided they then needed to invade Data East. Yeah, that's a startlingly accurate, airtight analogy that will not come back to bite us in any way. But the world was forever changed by 9-11. and one unexpected consequence of the terrorist attack was a massive swell of patriotism in Americans, which shaped the music we listened to, the food we ate, and apparently what we wanted to watch on TV. Generic anti-terrorist movies and shows like 24 became massively popular, but so did less expected avenues of patriotism, including a little sport involving carburetors, V8 power, rear-wheel drive tube chassis, and Ford Tauruses racing around on an oval. NASCAR rode the post-9-11 American public's love for burning gasoline to a new height of popularity and became the second most popular sport in the country by 2005, which is when, at the literal peak of NASCAR's popularity, Stern was able to secure the license and hand it to legendary designer and NASCAR fan Pat Lawler and his team, who went on to create what is, in my opinion, one of the greatest pinball machines of all time. This is episode 101 of the Wedget Pinball Podcast, the NASCAR episode. Alan, are you excited to talk about NASCAR today? I am, but before we get into the episode, it is my turn to plug the Coffee Fundraiser. In case y'all don't know, we are an unsponsored show. just like 9-11 the coffee fundraiser is an inside job since we don't accept sponsorships for a show that means we only cover the cost of the shows through your generous donations so keep it in the family you know it wasn't an outside invader sending us our money it was done on the inside just like 9-11 we can make these jokes since uh you know Wedgehead was born on 9-11 it's our birthday yeah that's true it's our birthday so uh it's a little bit controversial I guess in today's day but it was a terrible day that we were born and uh i regret it every day since but uh we're opening the bar on yeah yeah yeah i mean i mean i mean wedgehead yes yeah we regret that every day but uh other you know and then there was in 2001 there was a horrible attack that i think yeah but it really did lead to the rising popularity of nascar i think and nascar being super popular gave birth to this game so not everything that came in 9-11 was horrible No. You know, I mean, you got to take the good with the bad, right? You got to look at the silver linings. Yeah. And, you know, a silver lining of you donating to our Ko-fi account keeps us making the show. Also allows you access to our private Discord where you can chop it up with us and all the other supporters of the show. Talk about all sorts of things. You can talk about how wrong Alex is about NASCAR. They won't be talking how wrong I am after we're done with this episode. It's comprehensive. of airtight it is just like that first analogy okay but we'll get we'll get into it here two controversial episodes in a row i don't know how we're gonna do this man it's good it's gonna be good this one's a hit so nascar was made by stern pinball came out in 2005 they sold 3 500 units which is pretty solid pretty damn good frame and then they also sold 500 units of the lightly tweaked alternate theme Grand Prix for non-NASCAR markets. I'm pretty sure that most of those went overseas, although I've seen some in the U.S., so obviously some of them ended up here, unless those are just re-imports. Yeah, I believe that was because they weren't watching NASCAR in Europe. Despite selling 4,000 units of this game, which is already strong, the market demanded even more. And in 2007, they did a run of 600 units of the gorgeous Dale Jr. Limited Edition, featuring plenty of diamond plates, the color red, and Dale Jr. wearing little swimming goggle sunglasses on the back glass. Very cool. Very, very, very cool looking game, right? What does NASCAR mean? So NASCAR is an acronym. It requires all caps, much like MF Doom. You know, came out startlingly similar time frame. I think Matt Villene came out in 2004, which is kind of funny when you think about the difference of these two art forms. Two, you know, greats at the top of their game here with Mad Villainy's release. Yeah, Cars Turning Left and Mad Villainy. NASCAR. Yeah, it stands for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. Yeah, it is an acronym, which I don't know if a lot of people know. It's also number 225 in the Pinside list, which would qualify it for a Die on this Hill episode. But I really think this game deserves more respect than a Die on this Hill episode. So we're not wasting our time reading dumb words from ill-informed pinsiders about this. We're, you know, we're going to just talk about the good shit. It is noteworthy, though, because it's the third lowest rated Pat Lawler game. Rollercoaster Tycoon is the worst. Really? Yeah, people fucking hate that game. Oh, dude, I love that game. Yeah, and then CSI. I like that game, too. It's right in above NASCAR. Oh, wow. games like Family Guy and Ripley's and even Roadshow even Roadshow are held in much higher regard than NASCAR like all those games Family Guy and Ripley's are both like around 100 wow Roadshow's a banger wow yeah but Family Guy and Ripley's like versus NASCAR and you know sick ass Roller Coaster Tycoon CSI it's kind of funny there's a big gap between those so the title of this episode uh you know the greatest game of all time might be a little hyperbolic perhaps But I do genuinely believe NASCAR is a very good and very underrated and most importantly, very fun game with a lot of unique features and more thought put into it than most players might give it credit for. So let's start with the team behind this game. It's a team of industry veterans. They worked on a game that we discussed recently. There are a lot of names that we know from former episodes, and we'll start with Pat Lawler. We haven't done a full episode on him, have we? We have not, and we should. We talk about him all the time. All the time. I mean, yeah, he's... We don't really... We haven't done a lot of designer spotlights, necessarily. We talk about individual games and stuff. That's true. A quick history on Pat, if you aren't aware, his first game was Banzai Run in 1988, which was a very unconventional pinball machine that remains a showstopper in lineups to this day, thanks to the whole back glass being replaced with more pinball... Vertical playfield. going on there it's beloved by casual pinball players like i've never it's it's so cool it's remarkable how new players will flock to a bonsai run because it's fun and it's so epitome of like you can tell that that thing does something cool and you want to see the game do the cool thing yes 100 and i believe pat's final game or i shouldn't say that but i believe he officially retired from Jersey Jack as a designer after the release of Toy Story 4 a couple years ago. I'm hoping that we still see some kind of design from in the future Harry Williams style. I feel like there's no way he just is done done. But you never know. And if that is the end of his career, NASCAR is a little over the halfway mark in that. It's a little over 20, you know, 27 right now. That'd be 17 years in. Yeah, so it is about the halfway mark, which is kind of interesting. He found massive, massive, near unparalleled success while designing for Bally Williams during Pinball's DMD golden era. He was responsible for games that are loved by novice players, podcasters, home collectors, tournament players, and essentially everyone in this hobby. Except for you. Well, that's my next line here is that if someone tries to say they genuinely don't like any Pat Lawler games, they're lying or trying to be a contrarian. Because his games, there's a lot, I think there's enough variety. And even if you dislike all of them except for one, you probably are going to like NASCAR. It is unique. The software was handled by Louis Coziers, who had worked on, I might be saying his last name wrong there. I've always heard it, Louis Coziers. Okay. And he worked on Jackpot Arabian Nights and the No Good Gophers with Pat Bally Williams. When Williams shut down the pinball division, he was working on Pat's Pinball 2000 project, Wizard Blocks. It's a very cool game. It's made it to some shows in prototype form. It's one of those ones that I really wish we could have seen a finished version of it. It looks like actually Pinball 2000 potential. Lewis went on to help out on all of the games Pat designed with his independent company, including NASCAR. That's Pat Lawler Designs, PLD. He did four games for Stern under contract in the early 2000s. Which we covered in our episode, The Stern Dark Ages, with Greg Dunlap, who also worked on all of these games and who is in our Discord. Chopping it up. Oh, yeah. again all these people we should do episodes on because john yossi's a legend in the pinball game and famous for so many of these classic value williams games he's still working i believe at jersey jack to this day but his art is he no longer gets to do this art anymore which is a shame you know it's mostly digital art now but he was such a madman with the airbrushing and just the hand drawn stuff and some really good games including my favorite game whitewater pat lawler games like Whirlwind and Funhaus and Roadshow and games like Medieval Madness and Radical and... Moving on to other great artists that worked on this game, we have Chris Granner on sound. Yeah, go listen to episodes 96 and 97 if you haven't. Chris is the GOAT. Yeah. Greatest of all time. We did some awesome episodes with him highlighting his work. And Chris also did all the sound on all these PLD games. So they sound pretty damn good. they sound like classics. They sound like a classic arcade game. They don't have, like, some people will try to dog on this era of game because it feels somewhat modern, even though it's 20 years old now. And they'll be like, well, the sound quality is not good. It doesn't have, like, the cinematic audio that some people want in their modern games. And you're like, no, these sound like good arcade games. They cut through in a way that a lot of modern games don't, and they work well in small quantities, which is their intended purpose. I really do think this game has a very fun good sound package and it's just like crazy because that's one another thing that gets completely overlooked on it yeah oh absolutely and then the last name we wanted to mention well that's not true there's two more names to mention i guess on here one we kind of already briefly talked about but another massive name associated with this would be john crutch on mechanics and engineering he's a mechanical engineer that had worked with pat to bring many of his central mechs and toys to life. His first game was Banzai Run, and he worked on every Pat Lawler game through NASCAR. This was his last game credit. He holds a lot of patents, including many focused on lift ramps. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I thought I looked up his name and it just popped up with all his patents. And it's like 10 different patents all to do with lift ramps. And I was like, oh, this guy worked on No Good Gophers, I bet.

13:21

And that's when I was like, oh, I should know John Crutch's name. Again, we we keep saying this, man. We need to do episodes on all these guys, but it's like John Crutch might be the single most pivotal and influential person in pinball history that zero people talk about. Yeah. You know, Pat's the guy that pushed for these giant interactive mechs and toys in pinball. That's why they're here in pinball. Like, it is all Pat's fingerprints and pushing for it. But Crutch was the guy that actually engineered everything and made all of Pat ideas actually work It like almost not to downplay it too much but it like a Steve Jobs Wozniak situation where you like this dude's actually making this crazy shit happen. Crazy shit work. Survive in a commercial pinball machine, which is an entirely different talent. And you know, like Pat was a very skilled, you know, I don't think he was a classically trained engineer, but he was able to build things in his own garage. And I think that's what made him such a good designer is he was sort of multi-talented in a lot of different aspects. That's why he was so good as like an auteur type of designer. That's how he's known as a person that kind of has literally his hands in every process. But he also clearly picks his teams and then he works with the same people over and over and over again. I think he gets the best out of them. And I think if anyone's going to recognize talent, it's going to be Pat. And when I got to meet him at Expo, you know, I got to speak with him briefly. And I basically was just like, I want to talk about John Crutch. And then so we just talked about John Crutch. And so that was very cool. But, yeah, it's something we should probably highlight more of. But again, speaking of Pat identifying talent, there's one other name associated with this project that fans of the show know very well. And that is, of course, the great up-and-coming at the time programmer, Greg Dunlap, who was assisting with software in DOTS. Greg's been a regular guest. He's a really good asset for the show. He's good at corroborating, like, what we think of as rumor, whatever you can tell us. No, that's not what actually happened at Bally Williams. He really has been a very good addition to the show. Yeah, he gives lots of insights from his days working in the industry, but he's so far removed from the industry that he can tell stories a little bit more freely and kind of discuss what went on and just is a fun. You know, if you're not in the discord, it's worth the price of entry just to see what Greg will post in there, like you said, because I think Greg is really good at also not just the industry stuff and the insight from the business side and what it was like back then. But he's also really good at the old school tournament guy thing where they will super nonchalantly dismiss a great game with some sort of half real, half imagined fatal flaw of a game. Usually it's something like only shoot this one shot all day and don't even dare try and shoot anything else. So if you want to find out why your favorite game actually sucks, Greg is sort of like the Discord's personal encyclopedia of arcane rules knowledge. yeah he'll he has identified more like scoring exploits than most have ever noticed he is like an encyclopedia and he's he knows how every game is actually only one shot deep and he's ready to tell you about it yep yeah okay so obviously this game has an insane amount of talent behind it but as anybody that knows pinball credits there's a lot of games a lot of talent behind them that turn out mid so what makes this game unique why are we doing this episode about it why do i like it so much and what makes it noteworthy. And for me, the big thing about NASCAR is it's all about the playfield design and specifically that iconic track that surrounds the entire game. If you've never played the game before, you launch balls into a circular track that uses magnets to send the ball around multiple times before it enters the playfield. It's like a giant version of Steve Ritchie's getaway supercharger, but it feels more like a Hot Wheels track because of the size. The game physically moves. it'll sway on its legs because of the what balls like whizzing around because they're like really fucking moving in there at a glance the track serves no functional purpose it exists mostly for spectacle and is used liberally throughout gameplay a lot of people will critique the game by being like you're just spending the whole time just watching balls rip around that track where you don't even you don't shoot that track that doesn't do anything like people really will like downplay oh really because of that yep that's a lot of the negative reviews will be like yeah You're just waiting for that fucking track. And even if you take that at that shallow face value, it's still instantly memorable to casual players and conveys the speed of the game. It feels like, so the ball takes two laps, and then it's delivered to the playfield via a diverter since crashing into the test car in the middle. And it just kind of, like, you're in the game. It's like a big boom, and then you're, it's like the ball is just kind of bouncing wild immediately. It is not a safe delivery at all. There's a lot of ways they could have delivered the ball safely from the track, and they chose to just throw it in there at the bash toy and like get you right in there which i love it's just interesting to me because modern pinball designers need to be extremely careful with what they're spending their money on every game has a bill of materials or bom bomb that's what we always say when we're just when we're talking about like the budget of a game pinball guys always just call it the bomb the bill of materials it's the itemized list of parts it'll take to build the game how much everything will cost and modern companies to be extremely careful and maximize this bomb to provide players with a memorable, fun pinball experience while maintaining profitability. But in 2005, Spectacle was worth whatever this cost. It was an insane use of the bill of materials. It required a massive amount of re-engineering what would otherwise be standard pinball parts with the double trough and the subway system. Everything on this fucking launch lane, everything on this game was impacted by the choice to put in this track. And it is primarily for spectacle, and that's kind of like a beautiful thing that we don't see in modern pinball, because that's something that a home buyer gets sick of that quick. But in an arcade, it's crazy, and it makes you remember the game, and it makes you want to play it. It's hilarious and awesome at the same time. I really genuinely think the track is funny, and that's what makes it good. Yeah, NASCAR really is like an insane game. I mean, not only is this like clearly a very expensive game to build, but it's such a big tooling departure from the norm. Like during a time when Gary was still struggling to keep the lights on. And he's always been kind of famously trying to streamline manufacturing costs in general. So we had Greg talking about how they wouldn't let him spec. They wouldn't let Pat spec different colored rubbers because that would cost too much. It would be too much variability. And yet they were allowed to make this shit. Yeah, I know. Which is why, you know, Gary had to see it. He was like, oh, that's cool as hell. That's worth it. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. And I think they had just come off a couple big hits in the company. Right. Like Lord of the Rings had come out. Yeah. And Simpson. So they were selling some units. Post 9-11, dude. Pinball is American. It was money at this point in time. And Pat himself is a huge fan of the sport of NASCAR. But I also find it interesting how this game really feels kind of like a Steve Ritchie cover band design. You know, obviously the oval track was first done in High Speed to the Getaway. But this is also the only fan layout that Pat ever did. And it's the only two flipper game he ever did either. Yeah, that's kind of insane. It's also his fastest playing design as a result. And it's probably most similar to his very first game, Bonsai Run, if you ignore the vertical play field in the back box. Like it's fast like that. Yeah, I can kind of see that. It's got quite a bit of variability, but it is like it. That is the most like simplistic, basic play field he did. Right. Because, yeah, that game's not a two flipper game because there's flippers up in the back box. But the basic. Oh, no, there is a third. There is a third flipper even on that. This is literally the only time he ever did a two flipper game. The only time he ever did a fan layout, which you want to know where our fan layouts go listen to our episode of fan layouts, you know? Yeah. Why we love them and why everyone else should love them, too. But that track that I'm talking about, the big spectacle track, it does also serve a different purpose, and it gives the game a place to park balls other than a trough where players won't forget about them, which is a unique function. Because you know how we like physical ball locks, and it functions like a bizarre – it functions in a way as a physical ball lock, even though that's not where you're actually locking the balls. But if you're in a two-ball, multi-ball, and you have the option to add a third, the third will just start whizzing around the track, waiting for you to hit the hurry-up shot to bring it in. It adds tension in a way unlike other games. It's very cool how they use that. The biggest single thing the track does to impact the game, though, and a big part of why I like it so much, and what you kind of touched on a little bit, is that it takes up a lot of space. And this effectively compresses the rest of the play field, which leads to one of the fastest games Pat ever designed. Wide bodies are generally critiqued. The normal thing you see people bring up when they bring up, well, I don't like wide bodies. It's because they're floaty and they're slow. And that's usually due to long side-to-side bounces and too much available real estate. Not all wide bodies are like that, but that's the critique. Like, you go play a paragon that's not steep, and you're watching the ball go side-to-side. It's miserable. And this is the fucking opposite of that. This is effectively a narrow body, much like— Not even a standard body, like a narrower body. Yeah, it's like a narrow, narrow body. And it plays like it. It plays snappy and fast. It's also kind of notable because Pat did design a little game in the past, Safecracker, which has a third flipper. It also has undersized little flippers. The whole thing is too far from a normal pinball machine to really play like a normal pinball machine. I do think Safecracker is a fun game. It is a fun game. The rules are bizarro. I always have to have somebody explain to me what's going on when I play it because I haven't played it enough. It's time-based and it's, yeah. It's got too much different, and this is just enough different. For me, it's like, it's clearly pinball, it doesn't play that crazy, but it's like, you start playing it and you're like, this is just a basic little fan layout, there's not that many shots, and you're like, my god, it's fast. Some quick playfield thoughts, just for us to discuss. There's a state-changing center bash toy, which is not something you see on a ton of pack games up to this point, but you did see... It's true. You do see state-changing bash toys, but not center bash toys, not available from the lower flippers. one game you did see that on would be roadshow though kind of interesting huh fun game i like state changing bash toys because i like it that you can't just fall into the scoop all the time yeah and then it's like it pops up so there's a test car in the middle and you got to bash it and it pops up and then the scoops available and to stand up target so it it kind of makes it just adds a little bit of variability there and it keeps the two flipper game from feeling stale ever like you said it is just a basic two flipper uh ramp bash ramp layout from pat and it's the only one i could think of i didn't actually do like a thorough check i made sure i checked because i was like safecracker is the one that i was like shit does that have and it does have a little third that hits that spinning disc on the left yep this is the only one and then i made sure i went through each one and i was like pat loves to do three four five flipper games like pat is the king of putting little extra flippers everywhere and really like a lot of his design philosophy except for this game would be almost an antithesis of a fan layout he's like the opposite of making a fan layout game yeah is a pat lawler game you know when people ask what a fan layout is it's kind of one of those things that's really hard to describe and people argue about but what i will say is it's not hard to argue that pat lawler didn't make fan layouts and this is the only one he ever did yeah it is kind of funny and that's why it feels so unique it looks really basic like i just had a glance when you compare it to other pinball machines maybe but it's very very unique in pat's lineup in pat's games have their own flavor even in this more vanilla packaging is what i would say one part of that flavor is delivered via a shocking amount of diverters jammed into this thing like you said this was an expensive fucking game to make and they spared no expense when it came to diverters the track has two diverters on it that allow there's one in the bottom right there's one in the upper left that can get balls into the play field from the track it also has two different post diverters for the ball lock yeah i don't know why it seems like you could accomplish this with one when i'm thinking about it but now because it has to hold the ball but it also has to be able to deliver the ball two different directions then it also has the big windmill which is maybe the funniest part of the game is that there's like a really crudely constructed truck in the back with like a windmill function in it which is a little everything about this game is a little comical but it works well functions as a diverter because it'll stop the cars which sends the balls instead of going up the ramp they'll send to the left it also has the timing tower diverter on the ramp which is like a standard like yeah all return diverter so can go to the left or right flipper and it has your standard gary up post behind the pops yeah even though even though it doesn't serve the function of a launch it's there for like the infield party so it can divert into the three pops hidden behind the bash the bash toy which is just like fucking absurd when i started listing it out i was like oh yeah it's got a lot and then i'm like oh it's got that one too and then it's got that one too and you're like holy shit that's a lot of diverters it's pretty funny another just quick thought for me is that it has one of the fastest orbits uh in in a pinball machine it almost feels like the no fear u-turn or something it's so fucking quick it's good the speed of this game is like man it's it's wild i mean it feels like a steve richie game not only because steve did a lot of fans steve has done two flipper games steve makes fast orbits like this steve famously did the the getaway yep magnet spinning in the supercharger like yeah it does really feel like a little homage to Steve and I say little literally because it's like a tight little package it's like a Steve jr and you know what I know Pat has spoken repeatedly about how he respects Steve Ritchie a lot even though I think when the time when they were both at the top they were both it was kind of like a magic and bird scenario Like it like they both wanted to be the best and be considered the best And their main competition was with each other. But I think that, you know, now they see each other and really respect what what each other has done. And that's not to say that this still doesn't feel like a pat game. Yeah, because it absolutely does. All the like little goofy touches are like that's what makes it a pat game. Yep. But at first glance. Yeah, you can see where some inspiration was pulled. Yeah, for sure. The next thing to talk about the theme, the elephant in the room when it comes to this game. And I think a big part of its bad reputation. I'm admittedly a quote unquote car guy as my buddy Ty was out here visiting us. And he's like, well, yeah, you like NASCAR. Of course, you're a car guy. But I want to point out, I've never watched a NASCAR race in my life. I'm very much into the opposite side of the car spectrum with little motors and big turbos, and this is very much not that. You're too scared of loud and proud, good old American horse purse. That's the problem. Too much of a sissy boy. Well, that might be true. It might be true. But I do think, yeah, like Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious 1, before he's too scared of the Charger or whatever. Oh, yeah. But I do think this game serves on a serious note. I think this game serves well as a post 9-11 American patriotism time capsule. And I like it for that in the same way that I love no fear for being unabashedly 90s. This thing feels like post 9-11 America. It feels like Bush standing in front of a Mission Accomplished banner on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Or Michael Phelps at the 2004 Olympics before he got caught with the bong.

32:39

Insane that they were still running carbs at that time, dude. It's fun, though. That's crazy. It just started losing some of that flavor. It's like when pinball starts losing the physical pieces of it. When you lose the physical knocker in pinball, it doesn't affect you as the player, but it does somehow impact the overall experience. And NASCAR started losing some of its flavor, and it lost names. It dropped off. And like I said, we all kind of died with it. Yeah, I remember this time and loving the movie Talladega Nights. Well, that's true. It's a great movie. like a good that's like another good time capsule yeah okay going back to the actual game though more objective things the rules the rules on this game are wide more than deep is what i would say though the champ wizard mode is surprisingly difficult to achieve if you have the game set up like i do which i'll talk more on later if you want a full rundown join the discord or look them up online i'm not going to explain all of the rules but just a quick glance is that the or the you qualify and start modes with the center bash toy and then the scoop the orbit shots have their own associated mini modes that can run concurrent with other things and you have a race position you advance in some indiscernible way that will eventually lead to its own mini wizard i i've yet to figure out that one out i don't i don't look up rules if i can avoid it yeah and that's the one that i'm like what the hell is like what is going on a victory lap in my position it's just like everything seems to advance it but sometimes nothing seems to advance it so i'm not 100 sure eventually i'll get to the bottom of it who the fuck knows it's that it's that meme you always say the chimpanzee smoking just lean back this is who the fuck knows to qualify the champ number one wizard mode you have to earn the letters by completing at least one jackpot shot on specific modes which modes earn you a letter changes every game which is insane to me and it requires you to stop and look at the game info if you're really trying to get there because you can like hit the spinners to change which mode is qualified which mode you're going to start so you won't really want to waste your time playing the wrong modes you granted you could just like time them out or whatever and just get one jackpot per mode that's usually what i would do but if you're really going for the wizard mode you kind of want to like stop on ball one cradle up wait for the game info to pop up scroll over to champ one letters and it'll show you which modes in that game are gonna give you one but and then when you press start again it's different modes yep changes every game wow that's that that is wild it's wild it does kind of keep you you're like i don't know if i'm ever gonna get to champ one you know like it's kind of a it's a weird one that's a questionable one greg he greg probably had his hands on that probably fucked that up it's probably greg's fault as the dot matrix programmer exactly he's probably like this is my contribution to the rules fuck it up for alex uh and yeah that's that's the basics of it except for one thing the bread and butter three ball race multi-ball which features in my humble opinion the most hype multi-ball start of the last 20 years the announcer's like booming voice like just kind of like droning over the thing and then you have your like race leader like go go green green go and then it starts absolutely fucking blasting on default volume it has it has its max volume set so much higher than the rest of the game's volume and it just starts absolutely fucking blasting sammy hagar's licensed hit track i can't drive 55 out of those crackly white star era speakers insane pinball moment executed very very well in my opinion it's like a really good choreographed multi-ball start yep and it just it's genuinely fucking crazy what makes it even crazier is the way it delivers all three balls you lock all three balls by shooting the left ramp but all three balls get delivered via different entrances one goes into the track and starts ripping around which if you don't know what you're doing you assume that one's coming in right away because it's like like you know shaking the whole fucking game it's a distraction that ball is the last to enter the playfield every time and then it'll spit one out from the truck kick out which goes to like an in lane so safe one and then it has the psychotic kick out from that left scoop area or whatever that kind of just like bounces off the top of the slings right to the tip of a flipper every time it's fucking crazy dude it's a good it's a good start to a multi-ball and it's very fun i just really like that multi-ball start yeah that is crazy dude it's funny that's what all those fucking diverters are for pat's like we need eight diverters and i'm gonna show you why and gary saw this thing and he was like i'm not cuss cutting any of it it's perfect ship it was just a tear in his eyes he's like that you son of a bitch you've done it you've done it this is it dude it's the best but not everything on this game is the best there are some shortcomings but the fun part is i can tell you how to fix all of them there's a fix there's for all of them For everything. Okay, so this is like Alex's top tips. This is, yeah. Shit, I didn't put that in. This is an Alex top tip. Patented Alex's top tips. If you have a NASCAR, these are honest to God the fucking top tips. The game, number one, the biggest single problem with NASCAR, and this is like objectively true. There's no fucking way to deny this, is that the game absolutely spoon feeds you extra balls. If you're playing eight balls on NASCAR, you're going to hear too much Sammy Hagar. you gotta turn off the extra balls immediately i know operators don't like changing things from defaults i know operators a lot of the time are scared that removing extra balls is going to get the mean comments on the pinball map and it might it will it will i promise you people will enjoy this game more as a result that's my single biggest piece of advice for this game disable extra balls so easy to do just go turn them off you could maybe leave one i would just turn them off entirely it's better with them turned off entirely but you can have one as a fucking you know people don't complain too much and then you can pretend that's default this is a controversial one since i think most people outside of the regulars of wedgehead or pops in boston or lynn's down in california and probably many of you listeners of the show we are in a different group yeah we're in a minority most people seem to think that pinball is more fun when the game never ends well it's like a comment it's like on paper you're like more fun like it's longer game pin more pinball more fun and it's like trying to eat a fucking 10 pound cookie you're gonna throw up yeah for real you can't have that much nasty yeah there there are some young guns in the pinball hobby like i said uh the pops guys you know lynx arcade us and you see it even in the subreddit the pinball subreddit you'll i've been seeing more posts that are people like is it just me or is this game too long or it plays too long that's what we've been preaching this whole time like hard games are fun we like old games because old games are hard by default but you can make a lot of long playing games a lot shorter by tweaking some shit yes very easy stuff like extra balls because this game really does spoon feed you it's like you complete a mode you get an extra ball one of the modes is an extra ball you fucking get into a multi-ball you get a jackpot, you get an extra ball. It's just like insane. It is insane. And yeah, I think the default is like six or something. Oh, God, that's way too many. Speaking of too many, a lot of the standard test car, the modes like your your normal modes that you're hitting on the test car and starting with a scoop are multi balls in the race. Multi ball is easy to start on default rules as well. So you can get into a lot of multi balls. The good news is the ball saves aren't that long by default. A lot of those multi balls are two balls or whatever. And a lot of them, There'll be straight up like no ball save. It'll be like one second, two seconds or whatever. That's the way they should be. So if you set the game up difficult, you really, it doesn't, like I'm a person that hates too many multiballs. It doesn't bug me on this title when it's set up mean. Yeah, as long as you set it up mean and it's hard enough. You just don't want to feel like you went out to your garage to play one game of NASCAR. And you got stuck in 12 multiballs. Yeah. And then you don't want to play it again. Exactly. You know, you're like, oh, right. That's the opposite. said, I keep going down there to be like, I'm going to test one thing that I fixed. And then I end up just being like, I can do better than that. I can do better than that. And you're like, that's how the game should. One other, another really, really big gripe on this game is the test car scoop, which has a bad reputation for spitting balls out straight down the middle. I've not experienced this. I've played a decent number of NASCARs, not a ton of time on them in any of them, except for my own copy now. But I'm not experienced as much as some people seem to. I do know it can be a problem. And it's really a frustrating thing, especially for a new player when the scoop just kicks it out right down the middle. All I can say for that is my copy, someone like bent the edge of the scoop in and they welded like they literally like cut and welded the scoop to kind of like kick it out a little different, which isn't the side the ball rides on most of the time, but it is the side that's problematic. I think when it does settle on that side of the scoop other people I seen put like a big piece of felt as like a guide on the top of the scoop to help You can do things that I think make it not that big of a problem I yeah I mean I want to talk about scoops in general here I don think NASCAR like the only example of this. I think they're literally the worst mechs in pinball. The worst common mech in a pinball machine is a scoop. And I'll tell you why, because here's the thing. they don't communicate to the player what they do. And that's always a mistake. A scoop is a mech that sells itself to a player as a non-randomizing feature, when in fact it actually is a chaos-inducing feature, or it will become one at some point over its lifetime as it ages and bends or breaks its welds or it gums up and breaks its spring or rattles its mounting brackets loose. Ask me how I know. players look at a scoop as if it should be a safe and always consistent feed to the same spot on the same flipper every single time i think a lot of people think that because they're playing like virtual pinball and shit yeah or when you play a brand new game and it's like kicking out like the same or they're used to one their copy that spits out in one spot every time but that's what i'm saying but that's why vuk's exist that's why vux exist because if the designer cared enough about reducing the randomness of the scoop they would just use a vuck instead and it would kick it up and safely return down a ramp return or they'd use a side kick out to the edge of an orbit like medieval madness or getaway does yeah when you put a scoop on a game they know you're choosing to know that sometimes that ball is going to come out of there and hit a lip a little way or get a little backspin and it may send the game a ball into a sling the sling may go to the drain it may go directly down the drain the center drain or whatever like it's it's adding very you're basically like hey we're going to spit this ball out at the center of the play field and we don't know really what's going to happen afterwards they are adding variety of outcomes to it when they put a scoop on a game now i think that's bad because every player goes no it's supposed to do this thing yeah and you're like they even as the designer might have been like yeah i wanted to do this thing every time but if it was important for you to do the thing every time you wouldn't use a fucking scoop you shouldn't you shouldn't and that's the thing and like that's why i think they're bad mechs i personally think that if you are going to use them you should put them at the far edges of a playfield like godzilla or like metallica or like guardians or whatever get that shit on the wide edge because then the variance of the kick out it's still as varied as anything else it's just it won't dribble down the middle down the middle yep and that's the problem in a lot of games especially in the 90s attack from mars monster bash but even up in deadpool where the ball is expected to cross the center gap and hit the opposite flipper it's always a bad move when the if you have always a bad move you have a scoop that's like just kind of going a shallow angle to the opposite side's flipper, it's going to piss players off eventually. Yeah. At some point, that match will be doing that. And it's just a bad move, I think, in general. So I think that's what this game suffers from. I have no doubt that when these games were brand new and they were testing them and whatever, it wasn't a problem. But also, Pat's a smart guy. He knows. He chose to send it out from that position. Yeah. To add a little bit of chaos. And he could have easily tweaked. He had enough real estate with that test car and shit. he could have tweaked would that mech substantially so it's a randomizing effect which to me it's okay because i think randomizers and everyone's maybe not fine with nobody's fine with slingshots nobody's fine with magnus under the play field but at least the player knows the purpose of those mechs yeah when people get randomness out of a scoop they freak the fuck out so i think you're Right, and isolating this is like, I think that there are... It's probably the number one gripe about the game. Yep. If you tell someone you like NASCAR, they're like, oh, that's a fun game, except for like that scoop kick out. Yep. And so that's why. It's like, you can do things to tweak it, or you can also just learn to live with it. And sometimes the pinball, like, you know, chips, you got to play them where they lay. But another problematic little bit of technology on this game and this era of games are the opto switches, which can be a fucking nightmare and there are a ton of them on this title in particularly most notably the track magnets which use them to tell when the ball is approaching the magnets who can pulse the magnets in the ball around so if the optos aren't behaving at best the track won't function and the game can compensate but a lot of the time the game will be completely unplayable depending on how they're flaking because if they're kind of working it'll try to use the track and it just turns into a mess. The connectors on those Optos are the most common failure point. You can get repro boards, you can get repro Optos. The connectors seem to have been all of my source of frustration on my own copy. So at Alan's recommendation, I've just been deleting all of those old connectors and hardwiring all of them to the boards as necessary. And that's been able to- They're all like two wire connectors. Two wires, really big prong on the board. The boards themselves are easily replaceable. So if you're like worried, It's one of those things that it's like there's nothing to be scared of here. You have nothing to fear hardwiring like these ones. You can replace every bit of it super easy. It's not like you're hardwiring to a fucking CPU. You know? Oh, totally. If you have a White Star game and you've had flaky optos and you're like, oh, I just got to like hot glue that. Oh, I just got to like bend that. You just cut the wires, solder it. Solder it directly. Never question that connection ever again. Yep. It's so, so nice deleting connectors. It's the best thing in my life. I fucking love it. Dude, now you're excited now. Now you understand me. This is what I do all day. Spooky's fun again when you're just like, oh, if a connector starts failing, you're like, ah, sick. I got to go plug out the service outlet right where it's supposed to be in a spooky. I love firing up the soldering iron. And, yeah, you do a lot of that on NASCAR. So that's one thing to look out for. And then as far as setup, like my actual setup on this game, my personal copy is on 4-inch levelers. Set steep as shit. 4-inch levelers is also an inch taller than standard pinball levelers. Yeah. Which are 3 inches. yeah ty ty doesn't like these he says he's seen them fold on games online if they get shoved against a wall or something like if the legs get caught on something before the back of the game hits which makes a lot of sense because it's a lot more leverage the more thread you have exposed it's just like you know yeah so it's something to be wary of but it's not a problem on my own game and it makes the game play fast as hell dude yeah four inch four inch steep as shit and i've got lightning flippers on there because hell yeah the it's kind of the brand for the podcast at best at this point the bad boy flippers lightning flippers are like smoking six it's just undeniably cool as hell and people that don't like it are fucking losers right yeah you're just like you guys are fucking cowards losers it plays great dude and somehow the scoop kick out still doesn't like you still catch it on the tip of the flipper and they catch it the other like the left scoop kick out also you still catch on the tip of the foot it keeps you on your toes i will say that It keeps you on your toes. And then the outlanes, I'm still kind of like figuring out what I want to do exactly with the outlanes. I have them wide open right now, which is maybe a little bit much. Maybe too far. You get the balls just thunking into that wood. Like they fucking go in there with a vengeance, which sometimes I don't mind. It's funny to like us because we're like, okay, that's good. But I think it might not be loved too much by the public. So I might tweak that a little bit. Might just run them back a little bit. But that's my setup. If you wanted the, you know, the fucking water boy tune for your NASCAR, everybody with a NASCAR at home, if you want to enjoy it as much as I do, that's what you do. You make it better. This is the, that's exactly, that's the build dude. Four inch levelers. I rebuilt every single solenoid in the game. It's cleaned obviously, but that's standard stuff. And then lightning flippers lanes wide open, extra balls turned off. I didn't tweak any other settings. You can tweak, like you can make race harder to qualify, but I don't like doing stuff like that. It's too hard to learn. So I just turn extra balls off and make it hard enough to match the rules otherwise. I think that's basically everything there is to say about NASCAR, though. It's a great game, bizarre magnum opus of sorts for this team of Bally Williams alum, criminally underrated, and most notably, it's just fun. It is fun. That's why I want to talk about it. We're really excited to announce that NASCAR will be on the floor at Wedgehead soon, if not at the time of this episode, very shortly after. I'm hoping that we get it out there by the time this episode goes, but it's just a matter of coordination. If you're local, make sure to come by and play it. Let me know what you think, if I'm crazy and jaded, or if I'm actually onto something here. It even has a topper, so no complaints there. Even Ryan will like it from the Discord, because it's got a topper for him. If you're not local, go try and track one down. They're not that rare, and a lot of them still live on location. The unfortunate part is a lot of them are, like, broken and shitty copies, but even if they're broken and shitty copies, there's a lot of fun to be had, and it's kind of crazy to see the bizarre games that industry legends were putting out in this time. So if you can't find a NASCAR, your consolation prize would be like a CSI or a 24 or something. Go out and play a PLD game. Try to find a NASCAR. And if you're in the Portland area, like a lot of our listeners are, we're going to have Alex's going to loan it to us so you all can play it and play one tuned up to be fun as hell. Proper NASCAR that will take you back to the deck of the aircraft carrier just for three minutes or less. Three minutes or less. So that's what we're going for. Yeah, we'll put it into a fucking Howdy Partner and force you guys to play it. Hell yeah. Good time. But until next time, good luck. Don't suck. Go, go, go.