Why Do NASCAR Cars Have Fake Headlights?

Getting one’s hands on a stock car is extremely difficult. Mostly because it costs a fortune. But even if an extremely wealthy man gets hold of one such beast, they wouldn’t be able to drive it on the streets of America. One of the reasons these custom-built stock cars cannot be made road-legal is that they do not have real headlights. The ones on the NASCAR cars are merely stickers that are decals stuck on them hours before the race.

And it makes sense too. Every nook and corner of the tracks is brightly illuminated by lights from all directions. Hence, the drivers don’t need headlights on their cars even if the event happens at night. So why even bother putting these stickers on the cars?

In a Joe Gibbs Racing video, the team explained that the sole purpose of putting stickers on their cars was to make them look cool. But is that even that straightforward? Let’s find out.

With NASCAR coming up with the Next Gen cars, every team houses cars that look almost similar in terms of specs and components. Hence, the teams choose to put their identities in their cars. NASCAR Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip said, “All these manufacturers come up with their own way of putting their identity on the car; whether it’s the grille opening, the headlights or something about the car itself that’s similar like the car you buy off the showroom floor.”

Hence, putting headlight decals is a way for car manufacturers to maintain their fans’ loyalty.

The absence of headlights in NASCAR: a measure to ensure safety

Imagine a huge crash on the tracks. The headlights are most likely to get shattered into pieces as most of the time, contacts happen between the rear end of a car and the nose or another. This would result in broken pieces of glass flying out and landing on the windshield of the other drivers.

Moreover, the officials will need to stop the race several times to wipe off the broken bits of glass from the tracks every time there is a contact. Needless to say, that would be an unnecessary hassle and would delay the race.

In addition to that, having headlights on the already heavy cars would slow them down even further. According to NASCAR, every car has to weigh at least 3400 pounds, including every component and fuel. It goes without saying that both the teams and the drivers would want the cars to weigh as little as possible in order to minimize lap times and make the cars faster.