Printable Race Car Coloring Pages: F1, NASCAR, Indy
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Racing comes in many forms, and this set of 8 pages covers six of them: a Formula 1 car, an Indy car, a NASCAR stock car, a drag racer, a rally car, and a sprint car built for dirt tracks.
8 Race Car Coloring Pages to Print
Formula 1 Race Car
An open-wheel race car on a track with the front wing, rear wing, and exposed tires clearly outlined.
About this design
Formula 1 has been contested every year since 1950, when the new world championship gathered the great Grand Prix races into one season-long title chase. The official Formula 1 beginners' guide notes that Grand Prix racing existed long before that point, but the Drivers' Championship gave the sport a clearer way to decide who had mastered the whole season instead of a single event. Giuseppe "Nino" Farina became the first Formula 1 world champion in 1950, which is a useful anchor date for kids learning why F1 cars appear in books, posters, and racing collections around the world.
The early championship was only for drivers, but Formula 1 added a constructors' competition in 1958, giving teams a title of their own to chase.
Print this Formula 1 race car coloring page for a transportation lesson, an engineering-themed table, or a quiet motorsport activity for kids who like fast cars.
An open-wheel racer with a wide front wing, a tall rear wing, a curved aeroscreen over the cockpit, and exposed suspension arms.
About this design
The Indianapolis 500 first ran in 1911 on a 2.5-mile rectangular oval paved with 3.2 million bricks, earning the track its lasting nickname, the Brickyard. That single race grew into the modern IndyCar Series, which still visits ovals, road courses, and street circuits every season, but the 500-mile race at Indianapolis every Memorial Day weekend remains the series' signature event and the reason these cars carry the Indy name.
Racing an oval for 500 miles asks something different of a car than a road course does. Drivers hold a car flat-out through banked turns for long stretches, so an Indy car is tuned for sustained high-speed cornering rather than the constant braking and accelerating of a twisting road circuit.
A stock car on an oval track with a bold number and checkered-race details.
About this design
Stock car racing in the United States became organized in a big way when Bill France Sr. gathered drivers, mechanics, and promoters at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach on December 14, 1947. That meeting is where NASCAR was conceived, giving the sport a rulebook, a calendar, and a name that still stands for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. NASCAR held its first sanctioned race on February 15, 1948, and the first Strictly Stock race, the event that grew into today's Cup Series, followed on June 19, 1949 at Charlotte Fairgrounds Speedway. Those dates matter because they show how quickly a loose local pastime became a national racing series.
Print this NASCAR race car coloring page for a transportation unit, a racing-themed birthday activity, or a quiet table task for kids who love fast vehicles. Children can color the body, number panel, tires, spoiler, and track details while talking about how race teams work together.
A long, narrow top-fuel dragster with a slim open cockpit, tiny front wheels, huge rear slick tires, a tall rear wing.
About this design
Drag racing turns motorsport into its simplest possible question: which car gets from a standing start to the finish line first. The National Hot Rod Association, founded by Wally Parks in 1951, organized the sport into a set of standardized events after years of impromptu street racing on dry lakebeds and back roads in Southern California. Instead of turns, banking, or lap counts, a drag race is decided in a single explosive run down a straight strip, which is why a dragster's whole shape is stretched long and thin like an arrow.
The classic race distance was a quarter mile, 1,320 feet, for most of drag racing's history.
A rugged hatchback with a roll cage visible through the windows, round auxiliary spotlights above the headlights, flared fenders, mud flaps, and chunky off-road tires.
About this design
Rally racing is one of the oldest forms of motorsport, tracing back to the Monte Carlo Rally, first held in 1911, where drivers started from cities across Europe and converged on Monaco over public roads. That idea, racing on ordinary streets, gravel lanes, and mountain passes instead of a closed circuit, still defines the sport today. The World Rally Championship, founded in 1973, sends production-based cars through timed stages on snow, gravel, tarmac, and forest trails, often just days apart on completely different surfaces.
Because the road itself is the track, a rally car needs a completely different setup than a Formula 1 or NASCAR machine built for a smooth, closed circuit.
A short stubby open-wheel racer with a wire mesh nose guard, a narrow tube frame, and one large flat wing mounted high over the cockpit.
About this design
Open-wheel dirt track racing goes back to the 1920s and 1930s, when drivers stripped down early roadsters and raced them on the dirt ovals built for county fairs and horse tracks across the American Midwest. Those early cars were light, simple, and had no wings or aerodynamic aids at all, relying purely on raw horsepower and a driver's skill to hold a slide through loose dirt corners.
The single biggest change in sprint car history arrived in the early 1970s, when racers and mechanics began bolting large flat wings on top of the roll cage, directly above the cockpit. That top wing pushes down on the car as air rushes over it, pressing the tires into the dirt for extra grip through the turns without slowing the car down on the straights the way a parachute or spoiler might.
The Formula 1 and Indy cars have open wheels and big wings, a good chance for older kids to practice precise shading. The NASCAR stock car sits on an oval track with a bold number and checkered details, and the rally car is a rugged hatchback with a roll cage and spotlights above the headlights. The drag racer is long and thin with huge rear tires, and the sprint car carries one large flat wing high over the cockpit.
Each picture links to a PDF that prints on US Letter or A4. A set of six makes a handy starting grid for a classroom race-day activity.
Race Car Coloring FAQ
What is Formula 1?
Formula 1 is the top level of open-wheel racing, with races called Grands Prix in countries around the world. The cars are among the fastest on a race track.
How is an Indy car different from a Formula 1 car?
Indy cars race mostly in North America, on ovals as well as road courses, and they're best known for the Indianapolis 500. F1 cars race around the world on road and street circuits.
Why do race cars have wings?
They work like upside-down airplane wings, pushing the car down onto the road so it grips better in corners. That push is called downforce.
Why does a drag racer have such big rear tires?
Huge tires give the car grip so it can launch without spinning out. Many drag racers also open a parachute to slow down after the finish line.
Where does NASCAR race?
Mostly on oval tracks, though some races use road courses. The biggest race is the Daytona 500 in Florida.
What is a rally car?
A rally car races on dirt, gravel, snow or pavement, with a co-driver reading directions. The Rally Car design has the mud-flecked look of a real one.
What makes a sprint car look so odd?
It has a giant wing on the roof and a tiny, powerful engine. Sprint cars race on short dirt ovals, like the Sprint Car Dirt Track design.
