A Look at NASCAR Horsepower (It's a Lot)
What is horsepower, and what does a typical NASCAR car generate?
Written by Alex Reale
Reviewed by Kathleen Flear
Table of Contents
Horsepower: it’s everyone’s favorite litmus test for
vehicle performance
. A larger number next to that “hp” means more speed and more power. For many drivers, horsepower isn’t on the top of the priority list. Safety and fuel efficiency may take precedence over ability to overtake that obnoxious BMW in the left lane. But for NASCAR drivers, it’s all about the horses.
Here’s a look at the typical horsepower of a NASCAR competitor, and why it’s important.
The power of the horse
Horsepower is basically exactly what it sounds like. It’s a measurement of the amount of power that can be generated by one equine.
Credit goes to inventor James Watt, of steam engine fame, for coining the phrase, says
HowStuffWorks
. Watt apparently wanted to assign a precise numerical value to the amount of coal a pony could lift, how far, and how quickly, so he designed an experiment that yielded the answer: 33,000 foot-pounds of work per minute. For anyone who forgot high school physics, a foot-pound describes the unit of energy required to move one pound one foot. So a typical horse (or pony!) can move 550 pounds a foot forward every second, a feat that really puts the term “workhorse” in perspective. The 33,000 number has persisted to this day, and it’s how we characterize the skills of our horseless carriages.
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Horsepower in action
James Watt came to his conclusions by putting his ponies through their paces, but modern tools have supplanted this process.
Cars’ horsepower is measured using a tool called a dynamometer, which also tells us about its torque and rotational speed. Average horsepower for a passenger car in 2022 climbed to 252 hp, reports
Energy.gov
. Ordinary drivers can enjoy the feeling of 252 horses moving their foot-pounds right along. NASCAR has higher horsepower aspirations for its vehicles. Since 2019, NASCAR cars have been working at 550 hp, reports
NBC Sports
, but in 2022 the new number is 670. NASCAR vehicles typically go about 200 mph while racing, and can go 0 to 60 in approximately three seconds. Upping the horsepower by over 100 is bound to change these numbers, but it remains to be seen by how much. NASCAR made this change after two year of testing, so this season we’ll see how drivers handle their new steeds.
Not just for racing
Racing, with its high demands on a car’s ability to start fast and stay fast, requires a correspondingly high number of horses. Dynamic engines require a lot of horsepower.
But NASCAR and F1 don’t have a monopoly on this: anyone with money to burn can seek out their own unbelievably powerful engine. A 2015 Ferrari LaFerrari, for example, costs just over a million dollars and can generate 949 hp. That’s a lot of horses.
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