They did back in the day. Speed would not be a whole lot more than on the big tracks of today. It would just be on a bigger track. With all that wind you can just go so fast then you run out of horse power. You might say because of the configuration of the car it has it's own governor built in. About the slickest and fastest roadster belonged to guy named Jim Hurtubise it was powered by a cooler of Millers power plant. Sure did blow USAC's mind. It was plenty fast just not as fast as the lay down cars.

Honest Dad himself