Dodge Challenger Drag Pak Races Beefed-Up Hellcat Redeye, the Gap Is Huge

Getting a Hellcat Redeye into the 9s is a tough job, but it's definitely doable with the right upgrades. The folks over at Gearheads Performance are among those who managed to do it, but the Redeye still isn't quick enough for the drag-prepped, Mopar-built Challenger Drag Pak. And we know that because these cars had a face-off at Texas Motorplex recently.

The Drag Pak goes solo in the first quarter-mile run shown in the video below. It completes the sprint in 9.12 seconds at 162.70 mph (261.84 kph). Next up, the Hellcat Redeye smokes a Charger 392 Daytona with a 9.23-second ET at 147.65 mph (237.61 kph). A quick look at these numbers suggests that the Drag Pak isn't a lot faster than the Hellcat Redeye.

But things take a completely different route once the Challengers line up to race against each other. The Redeye is a bit slow for the take off, but it loses ground anyway as the Drag Pak heads toward a 8.16-second finish. The trap speed locks in at an impressive 168.35 mph (270.93 kph).

Despite the slow start, the Hellcat Redeye runs quicker than its previous sprint against the Charger, but it eventually takes the flag at 9.14 seconds, almost a full second slower than the Drag Pak. Its trap speed is no match for the drag-spec Challenger either at 149.07 mph (239.90 kph). That's a big gap, and it proves that modded Hellcats are still notably slower than the race-spec Drag Pak without radical modifications.

And this wasn't even the Drag Pak's quickest display. Dodge claims that the Drag Pak fitted with the supercharged 5.8-liter V8 needs less than 8 seconds to complete the quarter-mile. As a quick reminder, the 2021 Mopar Drag Pak was built in just 50 units, so you won't see many of them hit the drag strip outside the NHRA circuit.