Being a big racing fan, I've always wondered what happened to auto racing in this alternate universe. Did NASCAR ever become fun? Did F1 even exist? What did the cars look like? What fuels did they use? Did any enterprising wastelander stumble across a still functional monster truck and use it to get somewhere really quickly? Since those things run on alcohol you could start it by pouring in enough Vodka...

Do you guys think we'll ever find out what happened to auto racing in the Fallout universe? Perhaps it would be interesting to put in a pre-war race track or two in a future New Vegas DLC as a random point to explore?

I guess they got nuked too!

With Oil "Too valuable" for commuter use, Oil/Petroleum fuels would be out. However, Auto Racing would be a great forum to test new fuels - I could imagine teams using different fuels - A purely electric F1 car that needs batteries changing every few laps, a nuclear team, an Ethanol team, Hydrogen Fuel Cell team, etc.

I doubt it would have disappeared completely, if you think about it, Auto Racing dates back to roman times in the Circus Maximus (of course they weren't using cars back then...)

The only thing we can say is: Nobody knows. The pre-war past is shrouded in darkness for us only a little less than for the denizens of the Wasteland.
Theoretically speaking, car racing might have still been around - the 50s saw the rise of sports cars and the grand finale of Grand Prix racing.

True. I could perhaps seeing F1 on the bleeding edge in the Fallout universe just as it is now, testing a nuclear power cell that generates 1200HP and only weighs 100 pounds or something crazy like that. Or perhaps some sort of alternate fuel for piston engines, which is already being done in Le Mans racing in the real world.

A diesel engine will run off just about anything. There's plenty of things in the Fallout world that would run a diesel. Brahmin fat, for one. It could be converted into an oil of some sort, which with any luck will fire off a diesel. All that flamer fuel that seems infnitely plentiful(On the east coast anyways).



True. Man has raced ever since man had two things to race. Even if those two things were himself and his neighbor. I can't imagine nuclear Armageddon would cause Man to lose the urge to race. Hell in FO3 there's some Mole Rat Drags on the outskirts of DC.

Hrm..the Commonwealth is building hyper-realistic androids. Perhaps they're still racing cars? I'm sure if the Brotherhood could reverse engineer a vertibird and get it going the Commonwealth could get a few nuclear cars going. Or at least figure out how to turn Brahmin fat into diesel fuel.



Car racing in some form or another most certainly would have still been around in the Fallout universe. At least right up until the world went to hell.

It'd be awesome if there was some sort of race track in New Vegas(Or perhaps a future DLC for it) thrown in solely as a place of interest, A race stopped by the War itself, perhaps even with skeletons still in the cars? And maybe some nifty gear? I'd imagine a racing suit would prove useful for a Wastelander. The suit itself would, say, +10 or +15 your Fire Resistance, and the helmet would reduce the likelihood of a crippling head injury.

There wouldn't have to be anything quest related there, just thrown in as "a bit of what it was like before the war" information that many Fallout players, myself included, crave.

From wandering around the Wastland, I conclude vehicle engines were especially suseptable to the nukes. Lights, computers, robots and radios are all still amazingly functional but every car and truck is dead. At the same time the fusion power plants are still intact and wonderfully volatile! Either these self contained units have extremely efficient and LONG lasting failsafe features or they are actually very good hydrogen fuel cells. So Mad Max/Car Wars road racing in Fallout is less than possible.

If we drop the concept of it can't happen because the game doesn't allow it, I think vehicles would be probable but they would be extremely treasured finds. If cars on or near the surface were fried how about vehicles in well protected bunkers deep below ground? Any vehicle found would be priceless!. Tell me the government didn't sock away garages for when they crawled out of a Vault.

In true post apocolyptic karma, raiders would discover them first! And what would they do with them? Sensible trips to the market or the inlaws? Nooooo, RACING AND ATTACKING SETTLEMENTS!

At the time of the war, with petroleum nearly gone it seems they HAD to come up with new fuels so either SCIENCE! created portable fusion plants or science created commercial fuels cells. No need for oil and corn based fuel. That doesn't mean the need for speed went away nor that old forms of racing would drop. Horse racing in 2010 is as archaic as it get but it exist. Tell me the well to do wouldn't sponsor vintage internal combustion racers for the nostalgic roar of the engine. Otherwise NASCAR racing in 2077 would be a low hum of dozens of hovercars. Ooooo!

There's an idea, finding an old race track catering to ICE vehicles that weren't EMPed. Hope there was undergrond fuel storage.

Idunno. The Chosen One had a Chryslus Highwayman in Fallout 2, and the Enclave seems to have no shortage of Vertibirds. It's plausible the fusion engines could survive. Also, you must remember that some ICE engines have no electronics at all that would be damaged by an EMP. Diesel engines, old points-style engines, things like that. On top of that the metal bodywork would have acted somewhat as a shield. So unless there was a period in the early to mid 20th where ICE cars went electronic like they did in our universe, it's perfectly plausible that a lucky explorer could stumble across a still repairable car. The Fallount canon is so vauge on the matter that there's no real telling what happened here.


Most likely the only ICE engines that would be feasible in the Wastes are diesels, because not only are they so simple they need no electronics whatsoever, but they're also incredibly durable and will run on just about anything you care to feed them. Flamer fuel, which seems to be quite abundant in DC at least, would likely work without any engine modification at all. From what I can observe and guesstimate by firing flamers(and having them fired at me), flamer fuel has the consistency of a somewhat heavy oil. Who knows it might even make a decent engine lubricant as well.

That race track idea of yours would work quite nicely if the cars were diesel powered. And we know from the real world that a diesel powered race car is a perfectly feasible option as they've been racing them in Le Mans for a few years now and nobody else can touch them.


As for the raiders....honestly I think they'd be too drug addled to get the blasted thing started, let alone try to race one. They'd have to capture someone else and get them to do it, most likely they would seek out a pre-war ghoul who drove before the bombs fell. Greta, perhaps, for DC raiders? There's no guarantee that they'd be able to keep their hands on the car, however, that someone could simply jam it in D, floor it and bug out with an absolutely priceless artifact while the raiders try to decide who gets shot for this failure. Even if we give them benefit of the doubt and say they figure out how to get it started and moving from pure dumb luck they're still going to end up crashing it. Again they're so drug addled they won't be able to properly drive it. West coast and core region raiders would most likely end up going too fast across the desert, losing control and barrel rolling to both their and the car's demise, while east coast raiders would most likely end up ripping a wheel off on a pothole or spinning out and wrapping it around a dead tree. Or stuffing it into a rock outcrop.

I think you may have hit on why there are no working cars in Fallout, 200 years of Raiders.

One or two did survive the raiders, though. Chosen One had a car in 2242, if you'll remember.


still...even if the raiders did crash every civvy car they got their mitts on...there's bound to be one or two race cars at a race track still in tact enough to give us an idea of what racing evolved into right up until the war. Perhaps the ones that blew an engine on lap five and were retired to the garage were spared destruction?

According to the Fallout Bibles, Wealther residents of NCR were known to have the occasional car; The masters army were also slated to have "Steam wagons" but were cut due to timing constraints.

A working train was also going to be a key feature in Van Buren.