There’s a second when the Honda Beast — a CR-V outfitted with an IndyCar-spec engine — switches from electrical to combustion energy. For me, it occurred simply at pit exit of Putnam Park Highway Course in rural Indiana: you’re cruising alongside in close to silence, then with a guttural howl and a shudder, the hybrid engine kicks in. The sheer pressure of it should shove you again into the racing seat — and should you’re me, you’re most likely letting out amusing. The Honda Beast doesn’t want to exist, however I’m so rattling glad it does.
(Full disclosure: Honda invited me out to the 2023 Indianapolis 500 and likewise gave me an opportunity to check out a few of its newest and best items of tech, together with the unbelievable Beast.)
Earlier this 12 months, Honda launched the Beast, which is a CR-V outfitted with a 2024-spec IndyCar engine. The two.2-liter V6 is each hybrid and twin turbocharged, and it flirts with round 800 horsepower. It’s not a machine for the faint of coronary heart, and that’s why we had been requested to don some fireproof racing overalls and a helmet earlier than we had been allowed to lock ourselves into the passenger seat.
We’ve detailed the Beast’s specs right here earlier than, so I’m not going to double down on Honda Efficiency Growth’s wild journey, however suffice it to say that the Beast may be very removed from the household crossover it stemmed from.
As a substitute, I had an opportunity to nab two flying laps round Putnam Park as a passenger within the Beast — the very best place to revel within the wonderful extra that’s the Honda Beast.
I do know a few of my fellow journalists on the journey weren’t as impressed as I used to be by the Beast, however I feel we had been it from a really totally different lens. This was a challenge that was form of cobbled collectively within the off-hours of the HPD employees, a rolling “what if…?” that got here to fruition. It’s outfitted with highway automotive rubber and big brakes from the Acura NSX GT-3 Evo22 racer. It’s a household runabout held stiff with motorsport-derived suspension. It’s designed for enjoyable, not for technological refinement.
And I used to be form of pressured to get into that “enjoyable” mindset: as I used to be belted into my bucket seat, I shortly realized that I’d be too brief to the touch the ground of the automotive to brace myself. I used to be immediately transported again in time to my childhood, dangling my toes over the sting of the varsity bus seat as a kindergartener thrilled to seek out out the place my new associates lived as we picked them up for sophistication.
Putnam Park isn’t precisely the form of observe the place a racer can actually let unfastened, and so my driver simply barely hit the triple digits as he floored it down the straights. There’s that rollercoaster abdomen flip as your helmet melds into the headrest, the bone-shaking vibrations from a hybrid engine screaming by the gears. Racers like James Hinchcliffe and Max Verstappen have each put this machine by its paces throughout its immensely restricted testing time, and each walked away with favorable impressions.
Is the Honda Beast probably the most refined motorsport-adjacent product on the market? No. However it’s so rattling enjoyable that it serves to remind us that not all issues in life have to be excellent. Typically, they only have to make you smile.
