You could say that with modern vehicles that take care of the gear shifts themselves and have clever electronics to manage traction control so grip isn't lost, the reaction time remains the only real driver input that can impact the result of a drag race.
And you'd be right, even more so in the case of a Tesla. The EV has everything sorted, leaving the driver with the complex task of lifting one foot and pushing the other one down all the way. If that sentence sounds a little ironic, it's on purpose. That's because the job itself is indeed simple enough that you could teach your dog to do it, and yet doing it alone isn't going to win you races.
It's how you do it that matters and this set of three races here are probably the perfect examples to illustrate it. This Tesla Model S - and its driver - are not new to our website, but since they keep pulling some amazing stuff, they keep making their way back into our newsreel.
This time, the EV goes up against a vehicle built specifically for drag racing. It's a 1988 Fox Body Mustang that's been stripped to the bare metal, had a big canister of nitrous oxide fitted (allegedly giving it a 175 hp boost), and a set of full slicks to top it all off. According to the Tesla driver, it usually runs the 1/8 mile in the 6.6 seconds area, which is roughly 0.1 seconds quicker than the Model S Raven can.
Yes, that's the kind of margins we're dealing with, which is why the man in the Model S realized that the only way to win the race was by having a better reaction time. Even he didn't expect what was going to happen: 0.0007 seconds. To the naked eye, that's instantaneous, and the same goes for most slow-motion capturing devices too. It's the 1,428th part of a second, in case you were wondering. The triple zero also earns the driver an easy $50, according to the Showtime dragstrip policy.
Angry with the defeat and convinced the Tesla couldn't pull anything of the sorts again, the Mustang driver asks for a rematch. The race happens, the Model S takes 0.0373 to react, but the Fox Body runs out of NOS, so the gap ends up being even greater. Filled up on the go-faster juice, he asks for one final race.
The Model S pulls off an amazing start again, this time needing 0.0139 seconds to get off the line. The extra 0.0132 seconds compared to the first run proved to be less than what the Mustang needed to get the victory it so desperately wanted, making it three out of three for the Model S. What's truly amazing, though, is the combined reaction time for the Tesla over the three races. A stunning 0.0519 seconds.
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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