HP or TQ

[TriumphRoadster6]

Horsepower is a pretty useless number if you think about it. What is important, on the other hand, is high and low torque. Torque is what you feel and what pulls the car around. When you build for horsepower, what you're more or less doing is building for high end torque. High end torque is always better in track racing situations because you can keep your revs up by downshifting and get a big surge of power. If you have torque at low revs, there's not much you can do to keep it in that band unless you want to shift at about half your rev limit, which would kind of defy the point of racing in the first place... Drag strips and street racing are a different story though. For that I'd say good mid-range torque. It's the best balance since you're going through the entire rev band and won't be downshifting.