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.
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.
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!
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-
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.
