Exactly, racing eliminates all these things that are fussed over in street cars like I've been saying all along.......so what I said about 100 posts ago has finally been concluded. ON THE STREET where factory cars (and their compramises) are raced then factors like revs, weight and so forth become an issue. Race cars in competitive series have similiar weights, and handling characteristics which detirmines race class. Many people are familiar with sports car club racing which has looser restrictions and is more for fun and feature very "streetable" cars. Serious racing classes like SCCA and so on don't have 4 cyls and 8 cyls racing in the same class.......because the 8 cyls run faster.

I will say this again, why in short track racing where you have 3 classes (4cyl, 6cyl, and 8 cyl) why can't the lighter, higher reving, cars make faster lap times than the other classes? The 6 cyls are heavier and aren't supposed to handle as well as the independant suspension in the 4 cyls. But that small handling characteristic of independant suspension doesn't make much difference, nor does the weight (which isn't a lot different).

With the Nascar issue, the cars are very competitive and close. BUT, the winning teams (Hendrick, Roush, Yates) are all teams that have great engine building departments, capable of squeezing more power and torque out of the 358CI displacement restriction. Obviously you need a good pit crew and driver also. When the pro Stock series was ending up here, two of the top guys were posting nearly equal lap times in practice.......untill one guy blew his engine and had to go to a back up. He finished 10th and the guy he was competing so evenly with in practice came 2nd because he was still runing his best engine. Trust me, any advantage under the hood you can get from a good engine is ALWAYS evident on the track.