Stock car racing usually involves high-speed machines tearing through air at speeds in excess of 200 mph. Even when on the pit road, the cars are usually only heading forward. But, should the driver want to, guide it in reverse? The short answer is yes. Cars in NASCAR have always been equipped with a reverse gear since the advent of the sport.
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The Next Gen car that came into use since the 2022 season has a floor-mounted gearbox. The five-speed Xtrac limited sequential transmission replaced the four-speed manual in the new car and continued carrying a reverse gear along with it. The gear has been a part of NASCAR vehicles since the 1st generation and is crucial in helping drivers escape tricky situations.
The reverse gear is commonly used across IndyCar, F1, and other major car racing leagues. When the gear comes into the most use is while the car is unloaded from the hauler and it has to be taken into the garage. While the exact maximum speed at which a car can go in reverse is not known, it is safe to say that it isn’t a number comparable to that when moving forward.
One of the most bizarre yet exciting incidents that involved a driver engaging the reverse gear was when Xfinity Series driver Brandon Brown crossed the checkered flag backwards in a 2021 race at Charlotte.
Does the NASCAR Next Gen car have a power steering?
For many years, NASCAR stayed away from power steerings and instead let drivers manhandle the heavy cars by themselves. This presented the obvious difficulties in driving next to each other at high speeds. While it is unclear who first began using a power steering, there are rumors that it was one of either Geoff Bodine or Dale Earnhardt. Beginning in the 1980s, the mechanism started getting into wide usage across the sport.
The reduced effort from drivers that a power steering commands means that they can drive for longer hours and distances without tiring out and causing collisions. Bodine, who is said to have begun using the mechanism in 1982, said in an interview, “I started out using a manual type steering, I raced that way and I thought to myself, ‘Why don’t these guys use power steering on these cars?!’ 500 mile races… These big heavy cars. I mean it’d be so much easier.”
Thanks to the success that the likes of Bodine, Earnhardt, and Bobby Allison had using power steering, it is the norm today in the sport and has advanced driver safety prospects greatly.
