Street racing has many drawbacks and while the ones related to safety are obvious, there are also disadvantages that may not be all that clear to an untrained eye. Well, we've decided to showcase the latter and we're using one hell of a drag race as an example. To be more precise, the battle we have here involves a McLaren 720S and a Dodge Challenger Hellcat.
Of course, the Mopar machine wouldn't stand a chance against the monstrously lighter supercar in stock form. Then again, as we mentioned in the title, the Hellcat we have here has been taken down the aftermarket route.
According to the YouTuber who owns the muscle car, the blown 6.2-liter HEMI under the hood now delivers north of 1,000 horses (we're talking about the crankshaft output here).
When it comes to the McLaren 720S, this showed up to the race in stock form, which means its twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 delivered north of 750 ponies (you shouldn't trust the 720 horsepower official output of the thing).
The two duked it out on the street, as you'll be able to see in the piece of footage at the bottom of the page. As it usually happens, the battle involving rolling starts, since these cause less traffic disruption - the racing action kicks off at the 7:10 point of the video.
Nevertheless, there are two aspects we need to zoom in. The first, which is also explained at the 8:50 point of the clip, involves the gearing-specific situations. For instance, the two beasts kicked things off at 40 and 50 mph, but while the first was inefficient for the British supercar (below boost range in second gear), the latter did no favor to the Hellcat (close to the limit in second gear).
As for the second aspect, you'll notice that the driver of the Hellcat tried to jump the start (rushed countdown and all), while also taking his foot off the gas when noticing the McLaren was starting to catch up.
The conclusion? Keep the racing for the drag strip.
In his quest to bring you the most impressive automotive creations, Andrei relies on learning as a superpower. There's quite a bit of room in the garage that is this aficionado's heart, so factory-condition classics and widebody contraptions with turbos poking through the hood can peacefully coexist. Full profile
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