What is harder on your car? Drag or road course?
 

I had this discussion with someone recently and he was saying that drag racing was harder on the car. I believe road racing is harder but they both have their specific areas of difference. Like the road course keeps your engine at a higher temperature then drag, brakes, tires, overall strength of the chasis, etc. while drag has less of an effect but more 'shock' to the car. (Just my opinion..)


What do you think?

Depends greatly on the power output of the car..that's for one, how high reving it is..

There's too many factors to consider..

Not necessarily. Sure there are factors that are independant to the car, but that is what that car is built like. Like comparing a 240 and an ITR. 240 is lower revving compared to the ITR, but that is how they are built. I'm not really talking car-specific..

my vote is for road. :thumbsup

road is harder because of the extermes it faces for more than just 10 seconds or whatever it is.....

but each car is built for either Road courses or Drag... beacues you can never have the best of both worlds

^^ Agreed. You can't really include drag only applications..but on a daily driver per-se.

then its totaly Road.. man you kill the suspension and engine when your high reving your stock daily all the time... they arent meant to handle...

Road because the entire car's stressed longer.

yup, same here. Road race is more overall stressfull, but a bit easier on tranny (always moving) , where as drag is greatly focused on tranny and axel stress,(starts from stand point)

I still maintain that it GREATLY varies with the car.

a 6.XX second dragster breaks something every run, sometimes if they're lucky, every 2 runs, they have to swap blown components like hotcakes.

Roadracing can also be with stock cars, as long as you dont constantly keep the car's revs deep in the reds, your car will be fine, but it also depends on how long of a beating your car endures..

It always depends on the circumstances.

if only anyone here had a 6.xx second dragster :laugh: but i figure in general road courses are by far more detrimental to a car than drag if we're talking about everyday cars, even the majority of modified cars

24 hour lamans ? road is farmore stressful even though you argue that a 6sec Drag car breaks crap everytime..... think how much more money and technology is poured into road cars

While I agree with Zlatko that there is an underlying aspect of subjectivity concerning how hard one drives there car, type of car, type of race, etc. that may have an overall affect as to which is more detrimental on the vehicle, I do believe that a road course takes a higher toll OVERALL. That is to say, take two similar cars and drive them exlusively at their respected races (drag and course) and see which breaks first.

Me thinks this should be put to a comparison. Rental car racing. :thumbsup

scott

For genral cars that most poeple drive it would have to be road racing 100% Why?

If you look at most of the parts maufactures make for racing they usually tested on the NASCAR vehicles because they endure the greatest stresses. Imagine driving a car balls out at max RPM for HOURS, whereas in drag racing you only run for a few seconds at a time. Generally speaking 6.XX cars are purpose bulit cars making over 1000 hp and pushed to limits beyond any "normal" car. Not to mention being useless for anything other type of driving. If your talking about general vehicles that most people drive it would definitely have to be road race condiions.

Drag racing a car that generally run 13's and 12's won't break anything (unless you abuse it by doing neutral drops etc), but put that car on a road course and you have to replace parts ALOT sooner (ie. brakes, tires, suspension, engine fluids, etc) because of the stresses they are put through by driving the vehicle at or close to redline for a long period of time.

Just my 2 psi.