What is Auto Racing?

Why do women not compete in sports that men are predominant in? Well, here is why!  This Blog is a 7- to 10-minute read.

Auto racing is a term used to encompass a group of competitive sporting events which mainly involve the use of motorized vehicles/engine vehicles. With or without tyres.

Here are the various forms of motor racing:

• Air racing
• All-terrain
• Auto racing
• Banger racing
• Big wheel racing
• Board track racing
• Dirt track racing
• Drag racing
• Drifting racing
• Drone racing
• Hovercraft racing
• Ice racing
• Kart racing
• Lawn mower racing
• Midget car racing
• Motor Boat racing
• Motor rallying
• Motorcycle racing
• Off-road racing
• Open wheel racing – F1
• Oval track racing
• Production car racing
• Radio controlled racing
• Rallycross
• Rallycross racing
• Road racing
• Slot car racing
• Snowmobile racing
• Sprint car racing
• Stock car racing
• Touring racing
• Truck racing

As there are so many motorsports, I’m going to select a few well-known ones with full descriptions and for the lesser-known ones, I will just do a summary.

Some people mistakably consider all road-going “sports cars” to be the same, when in fact there are four distinct categories: Sports Cars, High-Performance Sports cars, Supercars, and Hypercars. The four types of sports cars are defined by performance, materials, exclusivity, and price.

Here are the various categories:

Open wheel racing

F1 is a set of classes of motor vehicles with their wheels outside and not in any bodywork of the vehicle. These are formula car series, the biggest one is F1 and F2 and F3. In North America, there are Formula 5000, GP2 and GP3.

F1 or Formula1 is a single-seat and open-wheel and is raced on a closed circuit

They have a top speed of 360km/h / 223mph
Fastest ever speed: 397.36km/:h (246.9mph)
Acceleration: 0-60mph – approximately 2.6s

Formula E is also an open-wheel that uses electric engines. These are no newcomers to dirt rallying.

The Indy Car Series is the highest class of North American open-wheel single-seat formula racing cars.

The premier event is the Indianapolis 500.

Enclosed wheel racing

Enclosed wheel racing is a set of classes of vehicles, where the wheels are enclosed inside the bodywork of the vehicle.

Sports car racing is a class of cars over a closed course track.

The well know 24 hours of Le Mans takes place annually in France

Stock car racing is vehicles that race over a speedway track organized by NASCAR – National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR)

On these race tracks, are able to average a lap at 388 km/h (241 mph).
The series’ biggest race is the Indianapolis 500, which is commonly referred to as “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” is the longest continuously run race and has the largest crowd for a single-day sporting event (350,000+).

Touring racing

Touring cars share some similarities with American stock car racing governed by NASCAR. However, touring cars are, at least notionally, derived from production cars while today’s NASCAR vehicles are based on a common design. Touring car racing is also referred to as saloon car racing.

How fast are touring cars?

WTCR. Top speed: 260km/h / 161mph approx. The World Touring Car Cup (known as the World Touring Car Championship until 2018) consists of cars that follow TCR regulations.

Sports car racing

Basically, it’s auto racing with the likes of, Porsche, Ferrari, BMW etc

Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. There are 2 different classes of sports cars for racing.

They may be purpose-built prototypes or grand tourers based on road-going models

The FIA World Endurance Championship is the most popular series that features races for both sports prototypes and GT.

The three most popular races in all of sports car racing are the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Production car racing

https://youtu.be/Pz6uthvesVI

Production car racing, Showroom Stock racing, Street Stock, Pure Stock, Touring and U-car racing are all categories of auto racing where unmodified production cars race each other, outright and also in classes. Cars usually have a protective roll cage and run race tires.

Stock car racing

Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing run on oval tracks and road courses measuring approximately 0.25 to 2.66 miles. It originally used production-model cars, hence the name “stock car”, but is now run using cars specifically built for racing.

Rallying

Rally is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests, navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed time or average speed.

Time attack series

Time attack is a type of motorsport in which the racers compete for the best lap time. Each vehicle is timed through numerous circuits of the track. The racers make a preliminary circuit, then run the timed laps, and then finish with a cool-down lap.

Drag racing

A drag race is an acceleration contest from a standing start between two vehicles over a measured distance. A drag racing event is a series of such two-vehicle, tournament-style eliminations. The losing racer in each contest is eliminated, and the winning racers continue until one remains.

Off-road racing

Off-road racing is a form of motorsports consisting of specially-modified vehicles including cars, SUVs, trucks, motorbikes, quadbikes and buggies racing in off-road environments

Off-road racing is immensely popular world round. The better-known ones are the Dakar Rally ad the Baja1000 desert race.

Kart racing

Kart racing or karting is a road racing variant of motorsport with open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on full-size motorsport circuits

Drifting racing

Drifting is a driving technique where the driver intentionally oversteers, with loss of traction, while maintaining control and driving the car through the entirety of a corner.

Drifting is different from drag racing. It isn’t simply a straight-line run for a quarter of a mile. In drifting, there is an enormous amount of modulation of the throttle to carry a drift. These drifts are done within millimetres of a concrete wall at high speeds.

Autocross

Autocross is a form of car racing where drivers navigate through a course defined by traffic cones on a large paved area such as a parking lot or airport tarmac. At these events, rather than face multiple cars in a wheel-to-wheel race, participants go through the course one at a time as a computer clocks them.

Autograss

Autograss racing is a form of amateur motor racing in Britain. Races are held at venues throughout the UK and Ireland. Its origins can be traced back to the 1960s. Autograss races take place usually on tracks of roughly 400 metres with grass or mud surfaces.

Banger Racing – Fruit Cakes!

Banger racing is a form of motorsport in which heavily modified cars are raced on oval tracks. These cars have been known to reach speeds in excess of 100mph, and the crashes are often spectacular.

If you’re looking for exhilarating and dangerous motorsport to watch or participate in, banger racing is definitely for you!

Board track racing

Board Track Racing was a type of motorsport popular in the United States in early 1900. The competition was conducted on circular or oval race courses with surfaces composed of wooden planks.

Demolition Derby – Double Fruit Cakes!

Demolition derby is a non-racing motorsport usually presented at county fairs and festivals. While rules vary from event to event, the typical demolition derby event consists of five or more drivers competing by deliberately ramming their vehicles into one another.

Dirt speedway racing

https://youtu.be/MU7IH1SQOFw

They race around oval circuits of around 300 metres in length in an anti-clockwise direction. To get around the tight corners at high speed the riders actually have to accelerate to bring the rear wheel out and initiate a “skid”!

Dirt track racing

https://youtu.be/3BLDnKL3p7w

Dirt track racing is a form of motorsport held on clay or dirt-surfaced oval race tracks often used for horse racing. Dirt track racing started in the United States before World War I and became widespread during the 1920s and 1930s using both automobiles and motorcycles.

Dakar Racing

The Dakar Rally was launched in 1978 by a young and adventurous Frenchmen named Thierry Sabine. In its early years, the race was called the Paris-Dakar Rally because it started in the French capital of Paris and ended in Dakar, the capital of Senegal.

The rally is an off-road endurance event. The terrain that the competitors traverse is much tougher than that used in conventional rallying, and the vehicles used are typically true off-road vehicles and motorcycles, rather than modified on-road vehicles.

The Dakar Rally is one of the toughest rally raids on earth, with cars, bikes, quads, and trucks covering thousands of miles across gruelling terrain for the fastest time.

The Dakar Rally is dangerous, unpredictable and downright terrifying. But still each year thousands of competitors take it on in search of the ultimate endurance challenge – the last bastion of true adventure.

These are the main categories:

Cars–Bikes–Trucks–Quads–Light Prototypes–Classics–Motorbikes–Quads–UTVs

Ice Racing

Ice racing is a form of racing that uses cars, motorcycles, snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, or other motorized vehicles. Ice racing takes place on frozen lakes or rivers, or on groomed frozen lots.

Hill Climbing

Hill climbing, also known as speed hill climbing, is a branch of motorsport in which drivers compete against the clock to complete an uphill course.