EA Never Loses NASCAR

Background/Point of Divergence
EA started making NASCAR games in 1997, with the first game being called NASCAR 98 for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The EA NASCAR series had some name changes over the time it has been making games, like NASCAR Thunder from 2001 to 2003 (games named 2002, 2003, and 2004), before returning to NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup and afterwards using the last two digits of the year after (06, 07, 08, 09). But where is the POD? In real life, EA made NASCAR Kart Racing in 2009 for the Wii and then stopped the series because of budget cuts and the expiration of the contract with NASCAR. But what if EA used the budget cut elsewhere and NASCAR renewed the contract until 2015? Because of that, NASCAR video games don't become mediocre and even panned by critics, instead flourishing with EA. By the way, the budget cut would mean that NBA Live would never get back off of the ground after its flunk with NBA Elite 11.