Cross Breeds

What would happen if one driving a very powerful car at near top speeds shifted to 1st gear swiftly...?

and continued to engage the throttle completely. Would the tires be able to turn fast enough to add any speed to the already quick moving car or would the already high rotational velocity exceed that of the max rotational 1st gear velocity the engine could generate at this gear ratio? I suppose what I am picturing is something akin to an iditarod dog sled race situation. If one took a very powerful, but slow sled dog and added him to a group of less powerful but extremely fast dogs, wouldn't the team actually be slowed down by the very powerful dog? Would the action of downshifting despite driving at an enormous velocity and continuing to engage the throttle all the way do any damage to the car? Thanks a lot.

Public Comments

1. Most newer transmissions have automatic safeguards to prevent you from destroying the transmission by accident. They will upshift and downshift even when you manually select a specific gear as the engine speed nears the redline or the stalling level. This means that you can get maximum engine performance by selecting first gear. 1st will neutralize when you take your foot of the gas. Also it will neutralize if you shift into 1st gear at high speed. Kind of a safety feature.
2. The sled dogs would work faster with the addition of a stronger dog. The engine of the powerful car would be revved up so high it would explode if the car was downshifted into 1st at speeds higher than 2nd gear could go. Or the transmission would drop out, or the drive shaft would drop out, or the clutch would burn out, or any combination of the above, all very expensive to fix.