To answer the basic question, no, a FWD car would lose if equally prepared to a RWD car.

Can a FWD car with 500+whp be made to beat a RWD car with 500+whp? Sure. But it's just wasting money in my opinion.

In my experience FWD is not a handicap until you start putting some real power down, then you start having drivetrain wars.

Quote Originally Posted by David88vert View Post
Anything can be done with enough resources; however, since you stated "class" and "roadcourse", let me answer this way. Why do they have FWD classes? Generally, it's because the FWD cars are not able to be competitive against RWD cars when they have the same regulations, such as chassis weight, engine displacement, etc. Open/Unlimited classes are dominated by RWD and AWD, and its rare that a FWD is even entered or able to qualify (usually 107-110% of pole).
Road racing doesn't (where I've seen) have FWD classes, only time attack, not even time trials. I differentiate time trials and time attack because time attack is typically mAd tyGht JDM stuff versus just race cars going for a fast time, not nearly as many wings.

In fact, most open road race classes rarely have any entries. It's not fun blowing loads of cash just to win against yourself.