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Watch A Dodge Challenger Hellcat and A Roush-Tuned Ford Mustang Choke Each Other Out On The Drag Strip
The Challenger and the Mustang took part in five races and they were all as close as they could get
by Sidd Dhimaan, onDo you know what happens when two loved modern-day muscle cars take on each other on a drag strip? Well, all hell breaks loose! ‘Sam CarLegion’ uploaded a video of a Dodge Challenger Hellcat taking on a Ford Mustang tuned by Roush Performance on his YouTube channel. The team raced the cars in different settings but it was surprising to see how evenly matched they are in all of them. This is definitely one of the closest races we’ve seen in a long time.
The Tuned Mustang Has A Better Power-To-Weight Ratio
The Dodge Challenger Hellcat is powered by a 6.2-liter, supercharged V-8 engine that puts out 707 horses and 650 pound-feet of twist.
Power is routed to the rear wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox.
The Ford Mustang, on the other hand, is tuned by Roush Performance.
It comes with a 5.0-liter, V-8 Coyote engine under the hood. The tuner has plonked in a supercharger and given it a Stage 3 tune that pushes the power outputs to 750 ponies and 670 pound-feet of oomph.
A 10-speed automatic gearbox powers the rear wheels.
The Dodge Challenger weighs 4,448 pounds, 266 pounds heavier than the 4,182-pound Mustang. This gives the latter a 0.180 hp/lb power-to-weight ratio, which is better than the Challenger’s 0.159 hp/lb ratio.
It’s Surprising To See How Close Each Race Was
For the first race, both the cars were set in Sport modes. They were neck and neck for a couple of seconds, but then the Mustang went slightly ahead. However, the Challenger was able to pull things back and was eating into the Mustang, but not before the finish line. The Mustang won here by the nose.
The second run was also in the Sport mode. The Mustang got off to a flying start and took a healthy lead over its ‘Challenger’. However, the transmission acted funny and got stuck in a gear, which allowed the Dodge to get past it and eventually win the race.
The third run was also in manual mode for the gearbox. The Mustang’s 10-speed gearbox allowed it to stay in the peak bandwidth all the way. The Challenger wasn’t too far behind, but it couldn’t beat the Roush-tuned muscle car.
They then tried the same Sport setting/manual mode race from 31 mph (50 kph). The Mustang, yet again, got a good start and went past the Challenger. The latter again managed to pull things back. This was so close that even the slow-mo replays couldn’t give us conclusive evidence as to which car won the race. We can call this a tie.
The next rolling race was also from 31 mph (50 mph), but in Track mode. The Mustang’s traction gets turned off in this mode. Well, thankfully, there is no crowd around the Mustang (if you know what I mean *wink*) This time, the Challenger had its nose ahead at kickdown. The Mustang didn’t let the Dodge capitalize on this and got its nose ahead. This see-saw happened till the finish line, but the Challenger got a win this time.
Conclusion
The scorecard reads 2-2 with one tie. This was arguably the most evenly matched and closest races we’ve seen in a very, very long time. Other than the race where the Mustang’s gear got stuck, all of the others were as close as they can get. Watch the video below and share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
