How Fast Are NASCAR Race Cars?
The most prominent racing series in the United States is the NASCAR Cup Series, which began in 1949 as the NASCAR Strictly Stock Series. While the winner of each weekend's race isn't always the fastest car on track, as many tangibles can knock a dominant driver or car out of contention on any given race weekend, the goal in the series has always been to showcase dominant speed amongst the competition.
While overall fan interest in qualifying has waned in recent years, qualifying was one of the most anticipated parts of a race weekend for decades as drivers would put their high-horsepower, low-downforce machines in an all-out assault of the stopwatch. Drivers would often put everything on the line for a chance to score a prestigious pole and to gain the advantage of track position as competition was much more stretched out back in the day. Additionally, there were no rules in place to assist drivers in gaining time back on track such as wave arounds, and free passes as we have in NASCAR in modern times.
Back then, it was all about chasing overall speed. While that approach has changed over the years due to rules within the sport, and a continual renewed focus on safety, NASCAR Cup Series race cars are still quite fast.
But how fast do NASCAR race cars actually go? It's a common question posed by hardcore fans, and casual fans alike. While it's a simple and valid question, the answer to the question is rather complex.
The 200 Mile-Per-Hour Barrier
The first time a NASCAR race car broke the 200 mph barrier in an officially timed lap was at Talladega Superspeedway in March 1970, a year after the biggest-name drivers in the sport boycotted the inaugural event at the 2.66-mile superspeedway after fears of safety. Buddy Baker, who was known to have a right foot made of lead, recorded an average speed of 200.096 mph driving a Dodge prepared by Cotton Owens during a test session at Talladega, which officially broke the 200 mph barrier wide open in NASCAR.
It was an impactful moment for the sport, and 200 was the new high-bar for drivers and mechanics to chase.
After years of flirting with the 200 mph lap in official NASCAR Cup Series qualifying sessions, 1973 NASCAR Cup Series champion Benny Parsons finally recorded the first-ever 200 mph qualifying run with a 200.176 mph lap in qualifying for the 1982 Winston 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Parsons' 200 mph pole-winning run set the tone for what would be a half-decade of increasing speeds at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway.
The unofficial NASCAR "speed race" would culminate with the fastest-ever official closed-course timed lap in the NASCAR Cup Series on May 1, 1987. Bill Elliott, who recorded an average speed of 212.809 miles-per-hour during a qualifying lap at the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway, took the distinct honor of turning the fastest-ever official lap in a NASCAR Cup Series race car.
After besting the record, which he previously held at 212.229 mph during a pole-winning run at Talladega in 1986, Elliott said he fully expected someone to come along and top his record in the near future.
"It never gets easier," Elliott said in an interview with the LA Times. "Every time you do this it keeps getting harder. Sometime, you're not going to be able to do it and somebody else will come along. You just go out there each time and do the best you can."
Little did Elliott know that weekend's 500-mile Winston 500 at Talladega would drastically shift the race for speed in NASCAR, and secure him the title of NASCAR's fastest driver seemingly forever.
Near Disaster Causes NASCAR to Focus on Spectator Safety Over Raw Speed
While it looked like the "fastest lap" in NASCAR history would continue to be reset with each passing season, the NASCAR land speed record chase essentially came to a halt on the same weekend that Elliott snagged the impressive pole. On Lap 22 of the Talladega race, Bobby Allison blew a right rear tire. The blown tire sent Allison's car spinning backward, and the car proceeded to lift off and slammed hard into the safety catch fence, which is designed to keep race cars from flying into the grandstands.
Fortunately, the catch fence did its job, as no fans were severely injured, but the startling moment led NASCAR to reign in the speed of its race cars. In 1988, the restrictor plate was adapted by NASCAR at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, the two 2.5-mile high-speed superspeedways on the circuit.
The restrictor plate was designed to rob the engines of the race cars of air, which severely cut down horsepower, and while this resulted in lower top-end speeds, and fewer cars going into the grandstands, it came with an unintended consequence. The intentional slowing of the cars at Daytona and Talladega caused Superspeedway pack racing like we see today, which has led to bigger and bigger multi-car crashes as the field is bunched up, and unable to separate from one another at these styles of race tracks.
The Rise of Intermediate Oval Speeds
While the installation of restrictor plates slowed NASCAR race cars at Daytona and Talladega, speeds continued to climb at the intermediate 1.5-mile ovals like Atlanta Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway over the years.
In the first race with the reconfigured and repaved Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1997, Geoff Bodine clocked in an eye-opening speed in qualifying for the NAPA 500, a race that served as the season finale that year. Bodine's speed was an astonishing 197.478 mph average around the blistering fast 1.54-mile quad oval.
That would stand as the all-time fastest lap at an intermediate 1.5-mile oval until 2017 when Kevin Harvick logged a 198.405 mph average speed during qualifying for the O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at the newly repaved Texas Motor Speedway.
To date, Busch's qualifying time is still the fastest ever recorded in the NASCAR Cup Series at a 1.5-mile intermediate oval.
The 2-mile Michigan International Speedway also had a turn as the fastest track on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit after the track surface was repaved ahead of the 2012 season. The ultra-smooth and grippy track surface led to video-game level speeds, and it all came to a head in 2014 as Jeff Gordon clocked a 206.558 mph average speed in qualifying for the Pure Michigan 400.
That pole by Gordon at Michigan in 2014 was the closest challenge to Elliott's all-time official speed record in the NASCAR Cup Series since Elliott set the bar in May 1987.
While not an official record, 1989 NASCAR Cup Series champion Rusty Wallace conducted a NASCAR test at Talladega Superspeedway in 2004, a test session where NASCAR removed the restrictor plate from his No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge.
During that session, Wallace turned a 216.306 mph average speed in a single-car run. According to the now-NASCAR Hall of Famer, he reached speeds of 228 mph at the end of the straightaways at the 2.66-mile superspeedway. At the time, Wallace figured with some tuning that his team could get his car up to 235 mph on the straightaways.
However, after seeing the speeds, Wallace and NASCAR both agreed after the test that the sanctioning body had no business running that fast.
"...there's no way we could be out there racing at those speeds," Wallace said after the test. "It was neat to be out there running that fast by myself, but it would be insane to think we could have a pack of cars out there doing that."
The Next Gen Car and the Impact on Speeds
NASCAR debuted the Next Gen race car in 2022. The new model featured lower horsepower totals, and higher drag, as well as an ECU, which allows NASCAR to detune the horsepower output at superspeedways like Daytona, Talladega, and the new hybrid superspeedway version of Atlanta Motor Speedway which was configured ahead of the 2022 season.
As a result, overall speeds in the NASCAR Cup Series have diminished.
In 2024, the fastest single-car lap in the NASCAR Cup Series was a 190.369 mph lap average at Texas Motor Speedway, which was recorded by Kyle Larson.
While modern NASCAR Cup Series cars turn laps as high as 190 mph in average speed, that mph total is due in large part to the rules in place by the sanctioning body which are meant to keep the speeds of cars reigned in for the sake of safety.
As Wallace showed in 2004, if given an aerodynamic early 2000s NASCAR Cup Series stock car with no restrictor plate at Talladega Superspeedway, Elliott's all-time speed record set in 1987 could have easily fallen. You'd figure that 20 years after Wallace's test, modern racing technology would allow engineers, drivers, and teams to push that number even further if they were allowed to chase the ultimate top speed.
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.