SUPRS, The Mod Squad, HeatFinder Work Together for NASCAR Heat Sim Racing Community
September 18, 2018 – Goshen, IN…After 15 years of being one of the best kept secrets in the NASCAR Heat sim racing community, the Supermodified Ultimate Pavement Racing Series, (SUPRS), has joined forces with HeatFinder, (HeatFinder.net) and The Mod Squad, (TMS), for their 15th Anniversary season to allow more people to use SUPRS NASCAR Heat based tracks and cars.
“Seeing SUPRS going from being a private entity of its own, and having it being opened for the entire Heat Community, it’s a big bonus,” DaveO-The Mod Squad
Contact Leads to Agreement
What started as SUPRS co-founder Bob Gangwer reaching out to The Mod Squad and HeatFinder to explore options for opening up the SUPRS NASCAR Heat based tracks and mods to the public, has now taken a big leap. While SUPRS will continue to host the tracks and modifications for Heat on their own website, (SUPRS.net), DaveO of The Mod Squad, has begun the process of compiling and loading the SUPRS files to the TMS website. Meanwhile, the SUPRS NASCAR Heat Race Server is now on the public HeatFinder Server Listing.
Good things expected from these three long-running sim racing groups.
SUPRS Goals
“Our goal is to, number one, give back to the NASCAR Heat sim racing community. Our mods and tracks have been a ‘members only’ deal and we just felt it was time to open things up and let others try our stuff for NASCAR Heat,” explained Gangwer. “The guys at The Mod Squad have always been there when we needed advice for NASCAR Heat and now DaveO has been very gracious to lend a hand in this new venture with a lot of advice and work on his part to protect the integrity of our files.”
Gangwer continued saying, “Number two, we want to expose more people in the online sim racing community to what we do, why we exist, and our particularly unique form of pavement short track sim racing.” “This is where HeatFinder comes into the equation. By listing our race server on HeatFinder, we are continuing to fulfill our Mission Statement by giving us an easy to use platform for anyone that has our mods and the Heat tracks we run, to race a supermodified against the SUPRS regulars.”
“This is a really great move, SUPRS will get new eyes on their great organization while the Heat Community will be able to see the great mod’s and tracks their team has created,” DusterLag-HeatFinder
TMS Welcomes Opportunity
For The Mod Squad, the first contact from Gangwer was somewhat surprising, but as DaveO explains, the opportunity was one that they couldn’t say no to. “When Bob, contacted me about, opening up about SUPRS NASCAR Heat tracks and mods, I was all for it,” he said. “I’ve known about SUPRS since its inception. Flash, SUPRS former track maker/modeler, is a member of TMS, and has always been helpful in answering tons of questions about track making, and Heat technical questions over the years.”
It may be an old racing sim, but NASCAR Heat is still being enjoyed and developed by many.
DaveO is happy that SUPRS is making their Heat files public and said, “Seeing SUPRS going from being a private entity of its own, and having it being opened for the entire Heat Community, it’s a big bonus. It’s nice to see these guys being a bigger part of the community, and everyone in the community being able to enjoy all the cool mods and tracks that SUPRS have created.”
HeatFinder Welcomes SUPRS into the Heat Community
“We were excited and happy when Bob reached out to us. We’ve had some of our staff members take part in their league before and had nothing but good things to say about the group.” said DusterLag. HeatFinder’s goal is to grow and support the entire Heat Community, Duster continued “We’re working with the SUPRS team to get them setup on our Community Calendar, Community News platform and potentially setting them up with a website on our CMS (content management system) developed specifically for the Heat Community. We’re excited to offer them everything we can.”
DusterLag only sees positive coming from SUPRS decision. “This is a really great move, SUPRS will get new eyes on their great organization while the Heat Community will be able to see the great mod’s and tracks their team has created throughout the years – which will only bring more members into their league.” said Duster.
Gradual Rollout
While things are progressing smoothly concerning the listing of the SUPRS NASCAR Heat Race Server on the HeatFinder website, there’s a bit more work to do on the back-end before everything is completely ready to roll out. Likewise, according to Gangwer, racers wanting to download the SUPRS tracks and supermodifieds from The Mod Squad, will see content added gradually to the TMS site. “We want to be sure that what goes out in the public through TMS is our best effort and that we present all of our tracks, most of which are very well-known as tracks that host supermodified racing, in an informative way,” he said. “Dave has been fantastic to work with in this area and has guided us through the process, so I think it all comes down to SUPRS making sure we have the “README” files right and giving him all the information he needs to make his life easier.”
“I think the way it’s going to work is that as long as a driver registers to race with us via the HeatFinder SUPRS page, it’s an open door for them to join us on any of our NASCAR Heat race nights,” Bob Gangwer – SUPRS Co-Founder
No Strangers to Sim Racing
The three well-known online sim racing organizations are also three of the longest in continuous operation, all of them having started long before newer sim racing titles like Project Cars, rFactor2, iRacing, Assetto Corsa became popular. All three have used the NASCAR Heat sim racing platform by Hasbro Interactive / MGI as the basis of their long running success. Likewise, all three have seen their fair share of comings, goings, good and bad in the sim racing community, but have stayed true to their original goals while continuing to push the limits of what an 18-year-old racing sim game can do.
The Mod Squad is Oldest
The Mod Squad started in 2002 and is considered “The Home of NASCAR Heat” they have a large and extensive list of top mods and tracks in the Heat community. They have a large searchable support forum archive and are also home to most of the Heat Community’s top mod and track developers. The Mod Squad continues to develop new ways to keep NASCAR Heat alive and kicking well into the 21st century and when many said that Heat was dead, they pushed back creating top-notch mods, tracks, and new utilities to keep the game going on Windows 7 through the latest versions of Windows 10.
The Mod Squad began in 2002 and continues to build and develop for NASCAR Heat
They have added three new utilities that are especially interesting. The NASCAR Heat Community Track Database holds several hundred links of where any community member can search fairly quickly to find a track, and then download it. In addition to a very fast response time the database also has a search function. For example, if you lookup a certain track (Daytona), it will list every single Daytona, that was ever created, and give you the links of where to download the tracks.
TMS also built their very own web-based carviewer. This utility allows painters torequest a carviewer for a certain mods to help painters view their work while paints are in progress.
The most recent utility project is the TMS Rendering System which allows users to upload a paint or skin in PNG format to the TMS website, where they can then download a full 3D render of their car. Learn more about The Mod Squad by visiting TheModSquad.info.
HeatFinder has helped bring the NASCAR Heat community together since 2008.
Community & Multinational Roots for HeatFinder
HeatFinder is one of the best sources of finding leagues, races and NASCAR Heat race servers. Started in 2008 by Sucahyo from Indonesia and DusterLag from the United States, they offer Server Listing, News, Calendar & Web services for the NASCAR Heat Community. HeatFinder helps support and promote this excellent game and the entire Heat Community in all ways possible. HeatFinder is also home to several community leagues, including the LCHRL which dates back to 2003, as well as FFS Racing aka the NASCAR Heat Superstore which began in 2002. Visit HeatFinder.net to find NASCAR Heat race servers and information about this legendary sim racing game.
SUPRS is Original
The Supermodified Ultimate Pavement Racing Series, (SUPRS), is the original and oldest supermodified sim racing sanction. Formed in 2004 as a way to promote real supermodified racing in the online sim racing world, the group uses NASCAR Heat and rFactor as the basis for their wing and non-wing supermodified sim racing schedules.
SUPRS uses both NASCAR Heat and rFactor for a challenging wing supermodified season.
Their “donation for content” model was initially scoffed at by the online community but continues to raise money for injured supermodified racers through the Dion Parish Memorial Benevolent Fund for Supermodifieds and is now in their 15th continuous year of racing. Visit SUPRS.net to learn more about “Supermodified Sim Racing for the Right Reasons.”
More Details to Come
It’s expected that there will be more details forthcoming concerning how drivers can race a supermodified on the SUPRS race server. While not completely finalized, Gangwer gave some idea about what NASCAR Heat regulars can expect. “I think the way it’s going to work is that as long as a driver registers to race with us via the HeatFinder SUPRS page, it’s an open door for them to join us on any of our NASCAR Heat race nights,” he said. “As Duster and Grumpy from HeatFinder told me, “It’s your rule book and you have to run your show the way that works best for you.” so from the standpoint of anything being too different, I don’t see that happening. We’ll still require drivers to use the same in-game naming format, they’ll have to have a mic for TeamSpeak, have the right mod and track on race night, and abide by our code of conduct on race night.”
In the meantime, fans and sim racers should keep their eye on all three organization’s websites and social media channels for further updates on this exciting development.
