While we’re not huge stock car racing fans around here we certainly have an appreciation for the cars and for the drivers that pilot them every week at speedways across the nation. We will admit to loving the sight of them on road courses, the few times a year that they get the chance because it is something different. This video was made a couple years ago an it features Kevin Harvick hammering the ever living daylights out of his stock car around Virginia International Raceway. This thing spends its life running between 9,000-10,000 RPM and being shifted up and down like your read about. It may actually change your perspective on the cars as well. How? We’ll explain.
You don’t really get a sense for how brutal land fast these cars are when they are running in a pack around a speedway but when you add in a bunch of turns, short straights, and acceleration zones, place yourself in the car, and get a front row seat to the action it is a totally different ball game. Watch how hard Harvick has to work to keep the thing from blowing the tires off the back of itself, how it wants to get sideways at every opportunity, and just how freaking fast it is! The transmission is not a sequential but as best we know it is a clutchless box and with the quickness that he is able to shift it down without rev matching we’re thinking that it is right to assume that it is clutchless.
We also had a field day watching the gauges as the clarity of the video is flawless. You will see them occasionally turn red, which must be an indication that things are getting low on the pressure side or high on the temperature side. The severe punishment that the engine takes over the course of the five minute video will also have you heaping respect on the teams at the shop who are in charge of developing an assembling them.
We see lots of videos that are interesting but this is a video that is exciting and as eye opening as they come. You HAVE to crank the speakers up and watch this. The noise is absolutely beautiful! Kevin Harvick has proven himself to be a heck of a racer over the years and he shows his chops inside this car. Enjoy the same view he has. virtually.
