Is There Such A Thing As Too Much Horsepower? #blogpost

I have written an article talking about why at the time I thought that the horsepower war among car manufacturers was getting out of hand. Now, I will be talking about that topic again with a different perspective and picking different types of racing and driving and talking about if there is a point where extra horsepower above a certain number is pointless.

Drag racing
Regarding drag racing, the point where you have too much horsepower in most cars is pretty high, because drag racing is really about 3 things; power, traction and weight. Drag racing is the most forgiving for driving high power cars at the limit because it’s in a straight line. Now imagine trying to drive a 1,000 HP drag car on the autocross, and you have yourself a handful. The takeaway is that as long as you have some meaty tires on the driven wheels, you would have to be making some crazy power for it to be too much for drag racing.

Autocross and track racing
This is the type of racing where worrying about having too much horsepower is a good thing. Manageable power for autocross and track racing is very important for corner exits. Drifting and sliding around can be fun, but it wastes time around corners making getting that first place trophy at the SCCA event that much harder. In the words of Randy Pobst, for track racing, it’s not about how much power a car has, it’s about if the car “put’s the power down.”

Drifting
This is a mix of drag racing and track racing regarding when you have too much power. Modern Formula Drift cars have buckets of power, some with up to 1,000 horsepower. However, you don’t need a lot of power to drift, just look at people drifting around in stock Miatas and AE86s. In my opinion, too much power for most drift cars would be something like above 1,300 horsepower, and even at that power level only experienced drivers would be able to drift effectively with that kind of power. The sweet spot for drifting is probably 500 horsepower while trying to drift with 90 horsepower could be a challenge.

Rallying and off road racing
Rallying tends to focus on technique and finesse while bombing down a dirt road at 100 MPH going over jumps like they aren’t even there. WRC cars aren’t that powerful while cars in the World Rallycross Championship have some kick to them. With off road racing you have 800 horsepower trophy trucks romping through the desert. Group B rally cars back in the day had some crazy power and people liked that. For rallying on forest back roads 500 horsepower should be plenty, but for rallycross and offroad racing 900 horspower should be enough.

In conclusion, too much horsepower depends on the situation and the car. 800 horsepower could be too much power for a Corvette on street tires used for track racing but the same power in the same car used for drag racing could be just fine. A 700 horsepower Miata could be a great drift car but a real handful to drive around an autocross course. Know what type of driving you will use the car for and if any extra horsepower isn’t worth the effort.