The World Wide Web has been flooded with a plethora of videos showing various drag races between different Dodge Hellcat models and the latest generation Chevrolet Corvette. We just stumbled upon a fresh one, which was uploaded earlier this week, and this story revolves around it.
Shot at the Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania during the RaceMotive event, presumably a few weeks ago, it shows a straight-line battle between a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and a Chevrolet Corvette C8. The muscle car is in a Widebody configuration, and the mid-engined machine appears to be a normal Stingray, aka the most basic version of the series.
But do not confuse basic with underpowered, as this is a blue-collar supercar capable of giving much more expensive vehicles a run for their money. Even without any modifications, the C8 Stingray is capable of hitting sixty miles per hour (97 kph) in just 2.9 seconds and will eventually run out of breath at 194 mph or 312 kph, the spec sheet reveals.
Powering it is a 6.2-liter V8 engine mounted behind the seats, which produces up to 495 horsepower and 470 pound-feet (637 Nm) of torque when ordered with the available Z51 Package or the performance exhaust system. The most powerful production Stingray in history is an 11.2-second car down the quarter mile, which makes it similarly fast to Dodge's low-slung Hellcat series.
However, the muscle car holds the high ground as far as the power is concerned, as it is way punchier than the 'Vette. The most affordable Challenger SRT Hellcat Widebody currently on sale is the Jailbreak, and it boasts no less than 717 horsepower from its supercharged 6.2-liter V8. The non-Widebody model is equally powerful, and the Redeye and Redeye Widebody bring 797 horses to the party.
It is clear that the Challenger Hellcat sits in a superior league compared to the Corvette Stingray, and normally, we'd place a bet on the former without thinking twice. However, we also have to consider the driver factor and how skilled they are, as a perfect takeoff can mean the difference between winning and losing.
In this instance, the two fast American machines raced against each other from a rolling start, presumably from sixty miles an hour, and by the time they were halfway through the race, one of them had a significant advantage over the other.
Curious as to which one was faster on that day? You will have to watch the following clip for that, which is only 45 seconds long. However, if you truly know your cars, then you have already figured it out from the hint dropped in the title. So, did you expect this model to prevail over its indirect challenger (pun intended)?
After a series of unfortunate events put an end to Cristian's dream of entering a custom built & tuned old-school Dacia into a rally competition, he moved on to drive press cars and write for a living. He's worked for several automotive online journals and now he's back at autoevolution after his first tour in the mid-2000s. Full profile
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