Is Torque King?

Everyone agrees that work is work and power is power, torque from a mechanical engineering standpoint is not just the pressure but the movement. From a physics standpoint you could have torque without movement but that is not the kind of torque we are talking about, we are talking about torque as a measure of work which does require the movement. Now adding in the horsepower part does add the rate of the work but just using the peak value is only useful in a cup car that spends it's whole life at that number. For acceleration you need to know the torque at every rpm. You are accelerating in. If you are so set on using the HP number then fine look at horsepower at every rpm you accelerate from and to, the peak value only counts for an instant. Still the torque is really what you are feeling here. 400 foot pounds accelerates at twice the rate of 200 ft lbs weather the motor is at 2000 rpm or 8000 rpm. So yes you are making more power at the higher rpms doing work at a faster rate, but without the work done to get you to that power, or the power done earlier getting up to speed, the guy in the other lane may have already crossed the finishing line if the contest is acceleration not top speed.
Sure small displacement motors can be quick but there is a reason classes are almost always based on displacement and even at the highest levels they put a cap on the max displacement.