NASCAR Thunder 2003 is a racing simulator published by Electronic Arts in September 2002 for PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox and in October 2002 for PC. It is the fifth game of EA Sports' NASCAR series, and is based on the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series. The product features Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on the cover. It was the first time the NASCAR's Most Popular Driver Award recipient was featured on the cover, although he did not win the award for the first time until the following year. The late Dale Earnhardt appeared in the game as a driver as a result of entering his name as a Create-A-Car driver's name, he did not appear in the previous game due to his death. He appeared as a legend in subsequent games.
Source: Wikipedia, "NASCAR Thunder 2003", available under the CC-BY-SA License.