The game placed more than 25 of the 40 regular drivers from the 1994 NASCAR Winston Cup season behind the wheel, though notable absences included Dale Earnhardt (that year's champion), Dale Jarrett, Kyle Petty, and Darrell Waltrip. Michael Waltrip was included. Players could race grids of up to 38 cars — reduced to 32 on shorter tracks such as Bristol and Martinsville — with multiplayer supported via direct computer-to-computer LAN links and through Papyrus's own online system, called Hawaii.
The CD-ROM version added an SVGA graphics mode accessible via a command-line flag, though the higher resolution was beyond the reach of many computers of the period. Hardware-accelerated builds were later bundled with the Matrox Millennium and Diamond Edge 3D graphics cards. Papyrus also produced a custom Daytona-only version for use as a fan-experience simulator at the Daytona USA museum.
The PlayStation version, released in 1996, featured 20 of the 39 regular drivers from the 1996 season. The player's car in that version was numbered 96 and branded as the Papyrus car, casting the player as a rookie competitor.
NASCAR Racing was a commercial breakthrough for the studio. Sales reached 350,000 units by December 1995 and climbed to 400,000 by February 1996. Bundled with its Track Pack expansion, it was the 24th best-selling computer game in the United States in 1998, adding another 225,737 units that year alone for an estimated $2.28 million in annual revenue. Together with its sequel, the game shipped more than 2 million copies globally by March 1998, and the first title alone surpassed 1 million units by 2004.
Critical response on PC and Mac was overwhelmingly positive. Next Generation praised "its astounding ability to create a realistic feeling of speed", noting that racing at 170 mph instilled genuine respect for professional stock car drivers. PC Gamer US declared it "the best racing game ever created" and awarded it the 1994 Best Sports Game prize, also nominating it for Best Simulation. Computer Gaming World gave it the 1994 Simulation Game of the Year award (tied with Aces of the Deep) and shortlisted it for overall Game of the Year. In 1996 the magazine ranked NASCAR Racing the 31st-best computer game ever released.
The PlayStation port received a more divided response. GameSpot praised the authentic track recreations and called it "stock car racing at its most realistic," while Next Generation criticised dull visuals and the absence of multiplayer. Electronic Gaming Monthly reviewers acknowledged the PC original's quality but noted the years between versions had allowed the platform to be surpassed.
Papyrus Design Group, founded in 1987 and best known for its IndyCar Racing simulation (1993), brought the same commitment to physical authenticity to NASCAR Racing. The studio pursued licences and driver data rather than arcade-style approximation, and the result set a template: laser-accurate tracks, realistic tyre and damage modelling, and a physics engine tuned against real driver feedback. That philosophy carried through every subsequent Papyrus NASCAR release. Papyrus developer commentary at the time noted the relative advantages of the Mac platform — integrated hardware, no driver compatibility problems — while citing Classic Mac OS's single-tasking architecture as a limiting factor compared to MS-DOS.
NASCAR Racing established Papyrus as the studio responsible for the gold standard of stock car simulation. The franchise it launched — NASCAR Racing 2, NASCAR Racing 3, NASCAR Racing 1999 Season, NASCAR Racing 2002 Season, and NASCAR Racing 2003 Season — progressively refined the physics engine and online infrastructure across a decade. The lineage ended when EA Sports purchased the exclusive NASCAR game licence for 2004–2009, leading to Papyrus's shutdown in May 2004. The 2003 Season title's source code was subsequently purchased by David Kaemmer to form the technical foundation for iRacing, ensuring the Papyrus simulation legacy continued into the modern era.