Everything about cars is that way. You think you know something, and then you learn a little bit more of the tech behind something, and it just makes a million more questions.

As for the powerband, if you think about it, it all kinda makes sense. If you’re driving a technical, short course, like streets of willow, for instance, you want a wildly different powerband, and probably car, than you would if you had to run down the back straight at big willow.

For streets you’ll want power in the low to mid rev range. You don’t need top end, because, unless you’re dumb like me, and drive an 89whp RX7 with like 3 ft-lb of torque, you aren’t likely to be anywhere near top speed, or the top gears. But, because there are tighter, more technically corners (which you’ll slow down more for), you’ll want some lower end power to get you back out of them fast.

If you’re on a much more open, and longer track, where you may reach top speed on a straight, but don’t need to pull the car out of tight corners often, you’ll probably want power in the mid to high rev range. Using my RX7 as an example, I’d run out of power long before I ran out of straight away on the back straight. Not the right car for the job.

For land speed racing, it’s far more important to have top end power, since it’s going to be closer to wide open throttle (mostly), and probably at the end of gearing, all the time. Once you get the car off the line, you aren’t going to slow down until the run is done. In fact, there are a lot of the vehicles there that get bump started off the line with a truck. So because we wanted as much power, at the top of the rev range, we chose a turbo that would be at peak power where we wanted it, which meant it seriously made like 50ft-lb until it didn’t.

The surface is wildly varied and racing gets cancelled often because of the surface conditions. The ever hating shoe person that I am, I had my feet in the ~~sand~~ salt as much as I could. The end and outside edges of the track are where the “crunchies” are. Imagine if salt built itself up naturally to be little peaks and valleys. Stepping on it collapse it to flat. The flattened edge of the racing surface is wet enough to make little snow men out of. I know, I got bored waiting for cars. lol. But it’s relatively thick (disclaimer it’s been losing salt for many years, and there are people trying to bring awareness to restore it. Don’t go out and do dumb shit to it. People have gone out and damaged it more than once. Article here ) actual track surface is pretty well packed. It’s surprisingly cold to the touch too. It’s really weird. If it’s submerged, I actually didn’t walk in that so I can’t for sure but driving on it, it was pretty stable. More like driving on hard packed dirt than loose sand.