What oils do they use in racing cars?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Mar 5, 2003
Messages
8,461
Location
Colorado
I have often heard that the motor oils used in racing cars are often different than what motor oil name might appear on the outside of the car. What motor oils are popular in racing cars of all types-Top Fuel, gasoline drag racer, CART, Indy Racing, Nascar, Winston Cup, etc.? The motor oils I have heard are often used in racing include Redline, Amsoil, Torco, Mobil 1, Royal Purple, etc. These are the motor oils that I have heard are used, but I don't know for sure. I have even heard that sometimes at major racing events, a company will formulate an oil for a racing car just for that event.
 
At top levels of motorsport (Winston Cup, IRL, CART etc), where they have the bucks to do it and the sponsers to pay for it, they usually have oils custom blended for their particular application. For amateur racing and some higher levels of racing, I'd say redline is used in more applications than any other motor oil.
 
That kind of goes along with what I have heard. According to what I have been able to find out, a long time ago in the past most race drivers used something like Valvoline racing oil. Then I started to hear about synthetics, such as Redline. And more recently I have heard that a racing team at a big event will actually have a motor oil formulated just for that race, so in effect they are not really using any particular brand of oil-the oil is developed for that race and may differ in many ways from any synthetic or conventional oils that people are used to. I heard a story about a famous race driver demanding that the same oil that was written on his race car actually be used in the race car. Whatever brand of oil is written on the side of the race car probably is not the oil being used in the race car.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top