Probably the best EA NASCAR game there is today. Amazing considering NASCAR games since have had online play and teams!!
User Rating: 9.8 | NASCAR Thunder 2003 XBOX
Gameplay: 10.0- The career mode is amazing. It can be so fun if you tweak the difficulty just enough so that you can still challenge the cars without breezing through races. This makes you have to fight for your sponsors. You also have to hire more experienced pit crewmen and fire those who keep screwing the race for you. There's also R&D where you have to have your team study something like windtunneling for aerodynamics ala Civilization. Another thing is your car. Over time things like the engine, and outside wear down causing you to overhaul it and get repairs, so you'll have to juggle several cars making repairs and races since you can't win on Talledega with your engine at 50%. There's also little fun tidbits like Awards for Rookie of the Race and Fastest Lap which gives you an extra goal. And the stats is very indepth. I remember I would write down my finishes and such just for fun. Seasons are okay but I stay more with career, unless I have a friend over. Quick Races are great too, because its up to 4 players my family and I have had a great time with this game (we even bought a steering wheel for it) , for some reason this 4 player option was dumped from 2004, 2005, 2006. The Lightening Challenges are great some are fun (the big one can be played for hours), and some are challenging. The training laps are cool because you can unlock pole positions by beating the times. By the way there is tons of stuff to unlock, mostly paintschemes and tracks. Finally the overall presentation is unmatched. Jets fly over head after the short anthem, "Gentlemen, Start your engines!" VROOM!, the cars leave the pits and an almost helicopter like view shows the cars in warm up laps with their names from car to car (just like tv). There's also highlights, crashes, blown engines, pits, incar views, qualifing, and test runs, so you won't run out of stuff to do. Graphics:9.2- They were great at the time and (albeit sadly) still stand up to todays NASCAR games. Sound:9.4- Very authentic sounds from the engines, the music is awesome with Steppenwolfs Magic Carpet Ride being there. The start of that song sounds like an engine reving up so it always gets me in a racing mood. If you don't like their songs put your own ones on from the Xbox Harddrive. Value: 10- I've spent at least 100 hours in the career, gathering up unlockables, racing with friends and just having fun. I spent five hours in a full 250 lap race. It was amazing. However currently the 10 is only symbolic of what it should be. Right now, its 0 because there no Xbox 360 backwards compatability! :( Tilt: 10- Big 9.8 for this game, if you want a great NASCAR racing experience and you have an Xbox still, go for this game for $20 and miss the 2007,6,5,4, games, trust me it's money well spent! 
