SUPRS to Celebrate 20 Years of Sim Racing

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October 31, 2023 – Goshen, IN…What began in 2004 as a six friends from the supermodified community meeting up on 56k dial up internet service, not knowing much at all about online gaming, and dealing with warp, bad mod files, lag, and no real direction other than to have a good time, has become one of longest continuously running online sim racing leagues in the world-the Supermodified Ultimate Pavement Racing Series or SUPRS.

It’s rare that you find a gaming league that’s stuck together five years, let alone a group that has sanctioned supermodified sim races for 20 consecutive years while using sim racing to give back to the real racing community like the gang at the Supermodified Ultimate Pavement Racing Series has That accomplishment is something to be proud of and a cause for celebration. So in honor of being the leader in supermodified sim racing SUPRS presents the “Triple 20s for 20” show along with a SUPRS reunion.

The Supermodified Ultimate Pavement Racing Series will celebrate 20 consecutive years of sanctioning supermodified sim racing and helping injured drivers. (Poster by BreezeGraphics.com)

SUPRS has led the way in bringing about awareness of the real supermodified division to the online sim racing world since 2004. That includes the continued development of the in-game supermodifieds, and the tracks they race on for sim racing. But we haven’t forgotten where we came from. SUPRS has stuck to the roots of the organization, and is one of the last to continue to use the NASCAR Heat sim racing game, which came out in 2000, and is one of the most heavily modified, and respected games in the history of sim racing. 

When it comes to the NASCAR Heat gaming platform, there were others before us including our friends at the Mod Squad, DRT, Texas Speed Sims, Heat Finder, and such, but many moved on to other games or completely disbanded.

Three 20 Lap Features Using Three Different Modifications

The night starts out with the very first NASCAR Heat modification ever used by SUPRS, Mike Jackson’s PSTM. Jackson of DSES, (Dirt Sim Editing Site), was a huge help in getting SUPRS going after John Davidson and Bob Gangwer inherited and re-envisioned Chris Nicastro’s ORS league. 

For the second race of the night, SUPRS first ground-up, in-house built mod, NHSM, built by Kevin Marine of Shaker Designs, will be used. Marine had never before seen a real supermodified but with the help of Mike Jackson for the modding, and guidance from real supermodified racers Joey Payne and the SUPRS crew, Marine came out with two different chassis for the game, one that looked like a west-coast supermodified and one that looked like an east-coast supermodified.

For the third and final 20 lap feature of the night, the most recent modification built for NASCAR Heat is the focus. SUPRS v6 built by Brad Quesnell broke ground when it came out, featuring five different chassis, articulating top wing, and incredible detail, and used input from real supermodified chassis builders, car owners, and drivers.

All of the 20 lap feature events will take place on SUPRS Stafford Motor Speedway built for SUPRS by Doug Forgue of Flash Tracks. Forgue was the main factor in SUPRS bringing more real supermodified tracks to sim racing than any other track builder in the history of the sanction. To date, SUPRS Oswego Speedway, originally built for SUPRS by Forgue for NASCAR Heat, and then improved for rFactor and rFactor 2 by Kevin Timmins, is still considered the most realistic in all of sim racing.

Supermodified Racers Race with SUPRS-

Over the course of our two decades of sim racing, we’ve had a good number of real life supermodified racers race with us. Joey Payne, Jr. was the very first, followed closely by Randy Ritskes. Doug Heveron, Jon Henes, Charlie Schultz, and Matt Palmer, were a few of the first to spend time with us. Then Kevin Tourigny, Matt Riley, Martin McKeefery, Kody Graham, Randy Burch, Bobby Haynes, Jr., Michael Barnes, Jason Spaulding, ISMA and Oswego Speedway Champion-Dave Shullick, Jr., Kevin Shirey and more recently Mike Netishen and Sawyer Stout all raced online with us at least once.

That’s not even counting the guys like Oswego Speedway track champions and International Classic 200 winners Steve Gioia, Jr. and Otto Sitterly or International Supermodified Association champions Chris Perley, Mike Ordway, Dave McKnight, Jr. and Mike Lichty, “Black Jack” Joey Scanlon, Pat Lavery, 2007 East West Shootout Champion AJ Russell, and more that enjoyed sliding the behind the wheel and competing against other real racers and fans at various fund raising events across the country.

Sim Racing for the Right Reasons

From the beginning, many of the drivers that raced with us online were also recipients of cash donations after being injured in their real supermodified. Being deeply involved in the supermodified community, we understood that many drivers, being self-employed, or just working to make a living, have no health insurance. We decided to try to make a difference and started the Dion Parish Memorial Benevolent Fund for Supermodifieds in memory of a racer that loved the division and died doing what he loved.

Dion Parish in supermodified at Berlin Raceway
Dion Parish is ready to race in this 1999 photo taken at Berlin Raceway.

We wanted to help drivers, and if the need called for it, their families if the worst happened. To date we’ve donated thousands of dollars to many in the supermodified community when they needed it the most and each year, as we’ve been able to, have awarded one driver the Dion Parish Memorial Perseverance Award at a supermodified race, (generally in MI), that includes an appreciation plaque and cash award.

Community Helps

The sim racing community has gotten pretty big since we first started, especially since 2020. When we first started, there were a few dedicated people building their own modifications and running their own leagues. If it wasn’t for the help of the people in the sim racing community that blazed the trail in NASCAR Heat editing like Mike Jackson, The Mod Squad, and HeatFinder.net, we would have never been able to progress the way we did. We were just supermodified fans and really had no idea, nor did we want to, develop a sim racing game beyond what it was originally. That community continues to help us learn the intricacies of all of the games we now use.

We couldn’t have done any of this without the dedication of Kevin “Shaker” Marine, Brad “8bit” Quesnell, Doug “Flash” Forgue, Joe Achzet, Kevin Timmins, or Nelson Rodrigues helping to develop our mods and tracks. Likewise, the Burn Boys and specifically Todd Matthews helping with hosting a dedicated server moved us to the forefront of a respectable league. From the very earliest days, because of people like Matthews and more recently Rob Warren, we’ve never rented a server from some unknown entity, our members have always stepped up to the plate.

In particular, Warren has dedicated hours of time, and loads of his own cash to build, maintain, and haul around the SUPRS pods to help raise money for the Dion Parish Memorial Benevolent Fund for Supermodifieds. He’s donated the cost of awards and merchandise as well. But more than that, he’s helped almost every other fellow member at some point or another to get their racing rigs fixed up when technical difficulties would have kept them from competing, even if it meant competition for his total of nine SUPRS championships.

We have relied on the help of other members like Myles Maxon, Bud Flath, Curt Kern, Keith Powell, Dave Brigandi, Bobby Hayduk, Kevin Timmins, and Brad Keysor to administer race night action while staying focused on fairness and making sure everyone followed the rules. Buddy Cottom spent a lot of time in the early days actually helping to build race computers and troubleshooting as well as painting cars. Chris Meyers paid for TeamSpeak hosting for a long time, and Matt Thomas, through High Speed Radio set up broadcasts of a few of our early races. In fact, while it’s hugely popular now to stream sim racing, SUPRS was doing it way back in 2008!

suprs11
True Henderson hard at work at one of the many SUPRS Grill-n-Chill fundraisers.

During her tenure at SUPRS, True Henderson has spent more time than can be accounted for keeping records, slaving over points and handicap spread sheets, mailing checks to injured drivers and their families, organizing and coordinating SUPRS grill-n-chills at various race tracks. She helped build our league almost from the beginning and there was never any question about who kept the books!

By the same token, Kevin Timmins of BreezeGraphics.com has done wonders with graphics for race posters, the SUPRS website and our social media channels so that we continue to look professional and consistent. Most of all, his unending, fervent, never wavering support of the SUPRS Mission Statement not only enhances every live stream broadcast he has produced for SUPRS, but keeps the wheels turning. Simply put, without KT, we probably wouldn’t still be going.

Sponsors Keep Us Going-

Cyndi Powell’s Icings on Top business has been the sole sponsor of the SUPRS Triple Crown of Supermodified Sim Racing presented by Icings on Top, and the Icings on Top Rookie of the Year Award.

Through our 20 years, we’ve had some fantastic sponsors, and not all of them were just businesses that our racers owned. Race sponsorship, title sponsorship, server sponsorship, you name it, the amount of gratitude we have for sponsors like Cleaning for a Reason, Showplace Landscaping, Adkins Glass, Fusion Custom Graphics, 1st to Finish Race Servers, Drive-In-Web Design, Haynes Racing, NSRA, Beachland Cleaning Services, Team 52 Racing, Twisted Metal Fabrication, Mike Soja, WAGS Custom and Cool Awards, Tower Trophies and Awards, Printwerx, HGI, RaceChasers.com, Lighthouse Lanes, Supermodified Scorecard, Penix Racing, Kern Motorsports, and BMK Logistics is immeasurable.

They have all, at one time or another donated cash and/or prizes that have allowed us to pay for expenses and put money into the Dion Parish Memorial Benevolent Fund for Supermodifieds.

Members Set SUPRS Apart

In the end though, none of the things mentioned above would have been possible without the dedication and good will of our members. Whether it is something as simple as having a good attitude when they come in to race, showing up to test new modifications or tracks, helping a fellow member, posing for a group shot, displaying a decal on their vehicle, sharing social media posts, or back in the day lending at hand at a race track while we fed 300-400 people in a couple of hours, it has always been our MEMBERS that set this sanction apart from all the others.

Bobby G. Mindy and Lindsey Parish Kalamazoo Speedway

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Bobby G. and Mindy Parish get ready to present the 2006 Dion Parish Memorial Perseverance Award to Jon Henes.

Thank You!

On behalf of SUPRS Co-Founders, John Davidson and Bob Gangwer, whether you are a casual fan, website watcher, financial supporter, past or present member ,we are grateful, appreciative and thankful for each and everyone of you. You’ve helped SUPRS to become what it has; a respected member of not only the online sim racing world, but the supermodified and motorsports community. 20 years is a long time to keep it rolling and you all helped make it happen.


Be a Part of the SUPRS Celebration

Celebrate 20 great years of supermodified sim racing with current and former SUPRS members, and enjoy the SUPRS “Triple 20s for 20” with SUPRS LIVE!. Featuring Live Streaming Video, up to the second Timing and Scoring, and insightful, fun commentary, and interviews, SUPRS LIVE! is the perfect place to watch all the action while you join your friends, make new ones, and cheer on your favorite SUPRS racers.

Visit www.SUPRS.net/site/Live or watch on SUPRS Twitch Channel at Twitch.tv/SUPRSOnline.

Join the Party

Former members, fans, and friends can join the party and help us celebrate. Whether it’s in our public Discord channel or via our live Twitch stream, we’d love to hear from you on our special night and we’ve got a couple of ways to do just that.

Join the party with Discord:

  • Download the Discord software to your computer. It’s also available for your tablet or phone for free. You can also launch the software right in your internet browser window!
  • Create an account, (doing so creates your own Discord ‘server’) at Discord.com Guest: Users can login anonymously by entering a guest name. We prefer you use your real name. Discord: Users can login with their Discord account.
  • Join: Create a Discord Account, (server), by clicking the Join button in the upper right hand corner of the chat window.
  • Use the invite key https://discord.gg/mYd3dGU to join the SUPRS Discord Server.
  • We have more info on our website to help-https://suprs.net/site/about/faq/#chatfaq
  • If you’re having trouble check out this great help page-https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/categories/11500021715.

Join the Party with Twitch

  1. Use your favorite internet browser and type in Twitch.tv/SUPRSonline
  2. At the bottom of the page you will see: Sign up to experience the best of SUPRSonline
    Just follow the prompts to make a Twitch Account.
  3. Once you make an account at Twitch you can sign up for notifications so that you never miss another live race.
  4. Just go to our channel and hang out in the chat room!
  5. You can also visit SUPRS.net/site/live and join the Twitch chat there as well.

Be Social with SUPRS

Be social and learn more about the original online supermodified sim racing sanction, the Supermodified Ultimate Pavement Racing Series, when you visit www.SUPRS.net. Join SUPRS active and vibrant Social Media channels by  “Liking” SUPRS on Facebook, Following @SUPRSOnline on X (Twitter), and viewing SUPRS videos on YouTube. We’d love to chat with you in our Discord server and invite you to watch the SUPRS Twitch. Stay up to date on everything SUPRS by subscribing to SUPRS Weekly at http://buff.ly/1Oh8YhV.


Race Night Times and Schedule of Events

(ALL TIMES EASTERN and except Drivers’ Meeting approximate)

Tuesday, November 2, 2023

  • SUPRS Reunion Begins: 7:00pm
  • Official Practice (All-Skate-10 Minutes each modification): 7:30pm
  • Drivers’ Meeting (MANDATORY!) 8:00pm
  • Time Trials: N/A
  • SUPRS LIVE! Broadcast Window: 8:30pm-9:30pm
  • Drivers to Cars: 8:50pm
  • National Anthem: 8:55pm
  • Green Flag PSTM 20 Lap Feature: 9:00pm
  • Green Flag NHSM 20 Lap Feature: 9:15pm
  • Green Flag SUPRS v6 20 Lap Feature: 9:30pm
  • Commercial Break: 9:45pm
  • SUPRS LIVE! Broadcast Post-Race & Close: 9:50pm
  • All Servers Closed: 10:00pm

SUPRS 20 Year Statistics

  • Number of Races Sanctioned: While it’s not an exact count, to the best knowledge currently available, SUPRS has sanctioned 1080 confirmed races as of October 31, 2023. With six complete years of Silver Crest, and one non-wing season of Gold Crest data missing, plus a handful of NASCAR Tour-type modified races thrown in, the figure is most likely another 150 races over what we can confirm.
  • Total Amount of Drivers Receiving SUPRS Points: 170-again based on best data available
  • States Represented by SUPRS Drivers: AL, AZ, CA, CT, DE, GA, FL, IL, IN, KY, ME, MO, MA, MI, MN, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NV, NY, OH, PA, SC, TX, WA, WI
  • Canadian Provinces Represented by SUPRS Drivers: ONT, QUE, BC
  • SUPRS Youngest Winner: Stephen Ritskes-age 16
  • SUPRS Oldest Winner: Carl Becker-age 76
  • SUPRS Driver with longest continuous, uninterrupted membership: Steve Callahan-Original Join Date of March 6, 2005.
  • Current SUPRS Driver with oldest Original Join Date: Gary Waldron-December 31, 2004

Top 20 All-Time SUPRS Points (incomplete-missing several years of data)

  1. 25 Bob Gangwer- 39207
  2. 35 Rob Warren-33712
  3. 55 Steve Callahan-22835
  4. 41 Keith Powell-20449
  5. 42- Carl Becker-19944
  6. 18 Ray Sand Jr.-16664
  7.  9 Brad Keysor-16428
  8. 11 Dave Ohh-14194
  9. 79 Myles Maxon-11848
  10. 10 Gary Waldron-10913
  11. 7 Nelson Rodrigues-9922
  12. 13 Ryan Cloonan-8421
  13. 52 Dave Brigandi-8169
  14. 38 Kyle Clark-7650
  15. 61 Derrick Backus-7177
  16. 23 Chris Meyers-7163
  17. 22 Zach Sears-6630
  18. 5 John Davidson-6436
  19. 9 Dominic Gioia-6231
  20. 12 Anthony Corsoniti-5171

“Supermodified Sim Racing for the Right Reasons” since 2004

About Bobby G.

Supermodified Ultimate Pavement Racing Series co-founder. "Voice of the Supermodifieds" Owner Bob Gangwer's Wing Side Up on the World Wide Web http://www.wingsideup.wordpress.com Christian, father, cigar smoker, bourbon drinker & race fan.
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