At Kansas, I think.
I’d swear I saw all four wheels spinning when a driver went into the grass today. The car was sliding backward and the tires were spinning forward.
I guess you can tell I’m not a fan.
Peace,
mangeorge
The wheels have a fair bit of angular momentum. If the car was in the grass it had already lost traction at some point, so it doesn’t seem unreasonable that the two non-powered wheels would spin on the grass.
Also not a fan or I’d be able to tell which wheels were powered, but I’m pretty confident that NASCAR cars aren’t 4 wheel drive…
Nope. Standard rear wheel drive.
That’s as I thought. I work with some NASCAR fans, and rear wheel drive is one of their bragging points. “Ever try to push a rope” is a rallying cry, even though I’ve tried to explain that that doesn’t exactly support their point of view. 
Compared to whom? Those front-wheel-drive racing series such as…
such as…
A properly set up all-wheel, leaving everything else alone, would simply kick ass in a NASCAR race.
Do they still use four speed transmissions?
They still use carburetors. NASCAR is not a sport about innovation. If you want that, look to F1 (where they don’t use AWD either, heh).
Edit: And what makes you think AWD would carry a significant advantage in NASCAR? It’s an old joke, but they do pretty much only turn left - and not very sharply at that.
The front tires can’t propel the car and turn efficiently at the same time. With rear wheel drive they can maximize the tire grip in the rear to propel the car and the front grip to steer the car. That’s the basic reason why race cars are not all wheel drive.
F1 doesn’t? I thought they did. You’re right, though. They don’t. How silly. How about CHAMP cars?
All wheel drive, with the help of computer assist (traction control), can keep the car going in the intended direction, avoiding spin outs.
AWD drive is only good in limited grip conditions. A properly set-up RWD with race tires on a large course has plenty of grip. I think AWD would just create extra drag. It would also cause parts to break. At drag strips, instead of just spinning the tires a bit, AWDs like to break parts.
At NASCAR it looks like the rears are first to let go in turns, making the driver back down. Seems like pulling from the front (instantly) would bring the car back even at full throttle.
I’m not a race driver, but I play one while watching a (rally) race.
BTW; back in the day Audi had to pay a penalty for it’s Quatro drive.
There is no such thing as CHAMP cars anymore because CART disbanded a couple years ago. You mean Indy cars, and no, they do not use all wheel drive either. They get to turn right sometimes on permanent road and temporary street courses. 
It depends on what the car is doing. If the car is really loose, the back end wants to wash up the track. If the car is really tight, it doesn’t want to turn, so the car runs up the track. If it’s too tight, the back end can start to come around because the driver is having to overdrive the car to make it turn. If the car is set right, neither of those should be a problem. AWD does have its advantages on certain types of tracks, but on the large ovals that NASCAR mostly uses, I think it would just create more drag and wear.
Okay, I’ll turn my fantasies back to rally racing, AKA rallying.
Woo Hoo, lotsa turning. :eek: 
The Quatro evolution is mentioned down in the text.
According to this webpage, four-wheel drive was used at Indy in 1932 and again in the 60’s.
Interesting site. Thanks for the link.
the front wheels dont have any spare traction for pulling while ripping through a turn at high speeds, if you hit the gas hard you would simply lose the front end as well as the back end. there is a reason for over 100 years of rear wheel drive. it is a far superior for of control under most conditions in the hands of a skilled driver.
think of it this way. your car has X amount of traction, each tire has 1/4 of X traction, the traction can be used in 2 basic ways. Acceleration/Deceleration and cornering.
the front wheels are responsible for the vast majority of cornering thus need all their share of the traction to control the car. ever hear of straight line braking? its used because the front wheels also provide something like 70% of the cars braking power, ever lose control in the snow/ice? neutral is the gear you want so you can use all available traction to regain control.
the rear wheels which have little need for cornering traction or braking traction are dead weight on a front wheel drive car. but on a rear wheel drive you can now put all that left over traction to work for you. and to top it off you can also use the transmission to force the rear wheels to brake the car leaving the front wheels to control it at higher speeds in turns than you could using the brake pedal.
I hope that made sense, I just woke up.
4WD was banned in F1 in 1982 after FISA got an eyefull of the Williams FW08, which had six wheels, four driven. It’s been banned in the various incarnations of Indy racing since 1970.
There’s no reason an all-wheel drive car would generate extra drag. The only extra bits which would be exposed are the front driveshafts, which would not be thick enough to make much difference and would allow the front suspension members to be thinner anyway.
It would create a lot of extra weight, though.
I wonder why the rules people would bother banning something that’s a disadvantage anyway. Because they can?
Anyway, I’m remembering things from my mis-spent youth, and I’m going to do a little research.
I’m really not addressing
front wheel drive, only awd.