[Tommy]

I'd like to take Jim's comment one step farther. Doing the kind of complete technical analysis described in Tom's link also requires the team fielding the car to consider the specific track they will run on. That implies they must have the resources needed to regularly swap out tires and other components to keep the engine in the part of the torque/horsepower band best suited for it. I can also see that this level of effort could not be justified by any but the super-rich unless they were competing in an actual race where thousandths of seconds matter.

The disconnect between a race team preparing a car for maximum performance and a weekend enthusiast selecting his only transmission for the weekend driver he may (or may not) take to an open track event is huge. So lets not get down on the only mildy informed enthusiast who goes for the "big flat torque curve" because it makes his car more fun to drive 99% of the time he is at the wheel. And while we're at it, I guess we can cut some slack for the guys who select an engine because it has a huge peak horsepower number that will never be reached unless its is run on the Texas Mile or something similar. We all know why they bragg about that number, and it's not because the car has ever seen it on anything but a dyno.