Timeline
The story of sim racing year by year, as it unfolded on the group: releases, patches, closures, and the rumours that came true (or didn’t).
1993
The group's first weeks. rec.autos.simulators was created in early December 1993 as a home for racing-sim discussion, and its early traffic centred on the two big titles of the day: Geoff Crammond's Formula One Grand Pri…
1994
1994 was the year of IndyCar Racing and the long wait for Papyrus' next game. The group spent the first months chasing Papyrus' overdue modem patch, which finally arrived as v1.04 in April, followed in May by the two Ind…
1995
1995 was Papyrus's year on the group. NASCAR Racing got its long-awaited 1.2 patch and a Track Pack, and was bundled with the first wave of 3D accelerator cards. Most of the attention went to IndyCar Racing II. Papyrus a…
1996
1996 was dominated by two long waits. Grand Prix 2 slipped from February to July amid fake cancellation posts, a virus-laden pirated alpha and rumours about MicroProse's finances. When it finally shipped in Europe and th…
1997
1997 was a year of waiting and patches for sim racers on rec.autos.simulators. NASCAR Racing 2 dominated discussion: two patches arrived in April and May, the Grand National expansion pack in October, and the long-delaye…
1998
1998 was the year of Grand Prix Legends. Papyrus released a Watkins Glen demo in April. After months of track-licence news, slipping dates and a warez leak, the full game reached North American shelves at the end of Sept…
1999
1999 was the year after Grand Prix Legends, and the group spent much of it coming to terms with how few copies GPL sold. Reports put the figure at roughly 36,000 to 40,000. Papyrus dropped its GPL-engine NASCAR Racing 3 …
2000
2000 was the year of the long wait for Grand Prix 3. After slipping from the first quarter, Geoff Crammond's sequel came out in the UK on 28 July and in North America in late August. Many regulars called it GP2 with weat…
2001
2001 was dominated by NASCAR Racing 4, which shipped in February to strong US sales but troubled launches abroad, SecuROM drive conflicts and long arguments over its AI and online wreckers; Papyrus answered with patches …
2002
2002 was a year of transition for sim racers on the group. Papyrus shipped NASCAR Racing 2002 Season in February and patched it through the year, but in September Sierra announced NASCAR Racing 2003 Season as the finale …
2003
2003 was the year Papyrus signed off from NASCAR. NASCAR Racing 2003 Season reached stores in February, and most readers soon agreed it was the series' best. A free fantasy track pack and a long-delayed patch followed. T…
2004
2004 was the year Papyrus died and the post-Papyrus landscape took shape. In January it became clear there would be no NASCAR Racing 2004 because EA held the exclusive NASCAR licence, and in May Vivendi Universal Games c…
2005
2005 was a year of transition for sim racers on the group. The Papyrus code had passed to FIRST-Racing, later iRacing, whose warnings and legal action against NR2003 executable hacks angered modders and pushed sites such…
2006
In 2006 rFactor became the main platform for modders. ISI's 1070 and 1150 updates added official content, including stock cars, while community releases such as CTDP's F1 2005 and the F1 1979 mod kept arriving. SimBin mo…
2007
By 2007 rec.autos.simulators was a much smaller group, and much of the sim-racing conversation had moved to web forums such as RaceSimCentral, NoGripRacing and Blackhole Motorsports. A November thread asked openly whethe…
2008
In 2008 iRacing dominated the group's discussion. In January iRacing announced subscription pricing, which started heated debate. After the beta non-disclosure agreement was lifted in June, the service began a controlled…
2009
In 2009 the group was quieter still. Most of its traffic was iRacing news and argument, along with announcements from a few long-running GPL and NR2003 leagues. iRacing tried trial offers and discounts. It signed a deal …
2010
By 2010 the group was a trickle of posts. Most were short news items from a few remaining regulars, with no long debates. iRacing provided most of the news: a licensed Williams FW31, new tracks, the Mazda MX-5, and a rep…
2011
In 2011 only a handful of regulars posted on the group, along with growing spam. There were no long threads, and most posts relayed news from web sites such as VirtualR or passed on sale prices. iRacing added Spa and, af…
2012
By 2012 rec.autos.simulators was close to silent. A few dozen genuine posts came from a small core of veterans, mostly Grand Prix Legends fans and the odd iRacing subscriber, and spam filled much of the rest. Most news c…
2013
In 2013 the group had almost no sim-racing content. The archive holds no news items and no notable threads, only a few posts among the spam that by now made up most of the traffic. The handful of veterans who still check…
2014
In 2014 rec.autos.simulators was effectively dormant. The year's archive holds a single news post, about iRacing adding a RUF all-wheel-drive car and the Patriot course at VIR, and no threads of note. Spam made up much o…
