Okay, so, I’ve always been a huge NASCAR fan, right? And like any fan, I’m always curious about how fast those cars really go. I mean, they look incredibly fast on TV, but you never really know the exact numbers, you know? So, I decided to do a little digging and, well, I got a bit carried away, as usual.
First, I started with the usual stuff, just googling “how fast does a NASCAR go”. Lots of generic answers popped up, but nothing really satisfying. Most of them just gave a wide range, which didn’t really scratch my itch for specifics. I wanted the details, like how fast they go on different tracks, or how the new Next Gen cars compare to the older ones. I wasn’t just looking for a simple number.
So, I started diving deeper. I found some interesting tidbits about the Next Gen cars. Apparently, during testing, they were hitting speeds between 185 mph and 190 mph. But then, I read that NASCAR was thinking they might be a bit too fast. Imagine that! They are crazy fast!
Then I got curious about the history. Were the older cars faster? Turns out, yeah, they were! The Generation 6 cars, the ones they used from 2013 to 2021, were regularly going over 190 mph. And if you go even further back, to the Generation 3 cars from the 80s and early 90s, those were apparently even faster! It’s kind of wild to think about how the technology has changed, but the speeds, while still insane, have actually come down a bit.
- I wanted to know about specific tracks, too.
- Like, how fast do they go at Daytona?
- Turns out, at the 2022 Daytona 500, the average speed was around 142 mph.
- But, the pole speed in 2021 was a whopping 191 mph!
My Notes:
I even tried to find information about road courses, but that was a bit trickier. Apparently, there’s not a ton of data out there, especially since the Next Gen car is still relatively new on those types of tracks. Maybe I just need to dig deeper on this part. Also, I found someone asked about the factors that impact NASCAR speeds, which got me thinking. I’m sure the type of track, the weather, and even the specific setup of the car all play a huge role. But how to get these details? I feel that I have just started.
Honestly, I ended up spending way more time on this than I initially planned. But it was fun! It’s like a little puzzle, trying to piece together all this information. And it’s given me a whole new appreciation for the drivers and the teams behind these incredible machines. They’re not just driving fast; they’re managing a ton of variables to squeeze every last bit of speed out of these cars. I’ll keep digging, and maybe I’ll even try to find some more advanced metrics to look at. This is a rabbit hole I’m happy to keep going down!
