For years, Papyrus has held the throne for realistic PC racing games with their NASCAR Racing series. However, Papyrus is gone, and there's a new contender on the block - rFactor, thanks to the Stock Car Revolution and the NASCAR Simulation Series mods.

The first thing you look at when looking for a mod is realism. Both NSS and Stock Car Revolution are fully realistic - with realistic tracks and cars - from Michael Waltrip's NAPA #55 Toyota to Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s new AMP Energy #88 Chevy, and from Daytona to Talladega. One omission (currently) in the Stock Car Revolution mod is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, although SCE's developers promise it will be available in a future update.

The way these two mods update themselves is very interesting. SCE has its own Mod Manager, which allows users to download and install updates as they become available, whereas the NSS mod is released in complete patches (3.3 as of this writing) when changes and updates come up.

As for the gameplay of both mods, they are both excellent. Bump drafting is very prevalent on the superspeedways, Daytona and Talladega, as you can run right up behind the car in front of you and bump draft him all the way to the front. Speeds are also represented very well in both mods, with top speeds running very close to their real-life counterparts.

If either of these mods have an issue, it's the damage modeling, however, that can be traced to rFactor in general. rFactor does not have as detailed a damage model as the old Papyrus game, but it does work rather well - parts fly off cars after a serious accident, and cars are dented by minor contact, which also alters their handling characteristics, necessitating a pit stop.

Speaking of pit stops, the NSS and SCE mods do model the "fastest 15 seconds" in NASCAR quite well, except that there is no pit crew actually "working" on your car, like was depicted in the Papyrus game. While this may seem nitpicky to some, it subtracts from the overall realism when compared to the NASCAR Racing series from Papyrus.

So, are the rFactor mods worthy successors to the Papyrus crown?? If you look at them strictly on their realism, the answer has to be a qualified yes. There are a few minor issues where the Papyrus game was better, but these could be rectified in future updates or patches. Whatever your opinion, for NASCAR fans, rFactor and these mods are now the only game in town.