860-HP Dodge Hellcat Drags Mustangs and Audi S5, Almost Loses Its Adhesiveness

The videographer behind the channel had extensive coverage of TX2K, and we marveled at the diversity of action provided by the event that took place in Ennis, Texas – there was drama, there were crashes, there were new world records, there were 'sleepers' acting sneaky, there were exotic roll races, there were also exotics drag racing, and many more. However, not everyone can provide a six-second festival of speed because that implies thousands of horsepower and hundreds of hours working with an entire team to achieve just a few moments of (never-ending) glory.

No worries, though, as ten-second passes can be just as entertaining, particularly when at least one of the Big Detroit Three is involved with the local quarter-mile dragstrip mayhem. If you need an eloquent example, the videographer focused on a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat that allegedly got some upgrades to sport 860 horsepower as it raced against a pair of feisty Mustangs and a surprisingly quick Audi S5 coupe.

The horsepower throwdown at the Bradenton Motorsports Park in Florida saw the mighty Mopar face off with the heavily tuned S550 Ford Mustang belonging to Team Duo, and both of them put the races into the proper perspective with a quirky performance – the Mustang hit the brakes at the end of the pass while the Hellcat registered a 10.41s time against the Blue Oval's better 10.35s time. However, the Dodge still won the skirmish, so maybe the Mustang stole the start (not likely), or perhaps they were involved in bracket racing.

Anyway, the second skirmish saw the mighty Challenger take on a different Ford Mustang, and this time around, no mercy was shown – to the point that the feisty Mopar almost lost its 'temper' and the contact with the sticky track and nearly lost control. Luckily, the driver corrected, and the Hellcat was soon back on the right track to claim its second victory of the day with a 10.81s versus 11.33s pass.

The rematch between Team Duo's Ford Mustang and this quick Mopar came third, and this time around, the Dodge Fans might want to look the other way as the Blue Oval spectacularly claimed victory with a 10.13s versus 10.26s result. Last but not least, later that night, the gray Dodge faced off against a blue Audi S5 Coupe and wrapped up the day with its best performance – 10.11s versus 10.82s. Cool, right? Oh, well, too bad that Challengers are a thing for the history books – Dodge ended production of the third generation in December 2023 but still delivered almost 10k of them during the first three months of the year from inventory.