Sunshine Speedway v 1.0 for Nascar Racing 2003

Track History: 
Sunshine Speedway opened in Pinellas Park, Florida in 1960, and has been going strong ever since.  The original owner developed the quarter-mile track on his 250 acre dairy farm.  He got the idea to open a track in Pinellas County after attending races at the old 0.33 mile asphalt Golden Gate Speedway in Tampa, Florida.  (The Grand National boys visited Golden Gate in 1962, but never came back).  Noting that Pinellas County racers outnumbered the "local" Tampa racers at Golden Gate, opening a track back across the bay in Pinellas County made sense to him. 

With growth in the area over the track's 45-year history, the property is now surrounded by urban sprawl. As one of the last large parcels of undeveloped land in the area, and being adjacent to a regional airport, developers -- and the state -- envision other uses for the property.  A multi-lane throughway to ease traffic congestion is proposed that would pass right through the property.  So, Sunshine Speedway's long history has come to a close.  In 2004, the state bought the property and the owners/promoters finished out the 2004 season with a grand finale of racing on November 20, 2004.  Please check out the Speedway's website at http://sunshinespeedway.com.

The track hosted weekly Saturday night racing for open-wheel modifieds, outlaw latemodels, street stocks, mini-stocks, enduros, and a figure-8 race.  Special events include go-kart races, bath tub races, boat trailer racing, train racing (3 cars chained together), demolition derbies, and the ever popular school bus figure-8 races.  There is also an active dragstrip and a motocross facility associated with the Speedway property, and those will continue to operate for a couple of years until the highway development begins.

We've tried to accurately re-create the look and feel of the track, as it looked in 2004, for your enjoyment in Nascar Racing 2003.  If you wonder about the billboards only covering half the backstretch; there were a lot more billboards on the backstretch in 2003, but the other half blew down in a big thunderstorm.  

Given certain limitations in the game, we took a few liberties in the design.  For example, we're missing one decent sized grandstand in the curve of T4; just can't fit it in.  Similarly, there is no room to put the proper sized T1 grandstand in either.  Sunshine doesn't have a pit road.  The real 'pits' is just a closed off area of the parking lot where racers can work on their cars between races.  But the game track does reflect the correct locations for the track exit and entrance. 

For a view of the real track, we've included a sunshine_overhead.jpg of the microsoft terraserver image, or you can go to the following link to see it in different magnifications:

http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.aspx?t=4&s=9&x=3336&y=30856&z=17&w=2