Launch! 9 sec Dodge Demon vs 8 sec Big Block Camaro – Carrying the Wheels – Road Test TV

A small-block Dodge Demon 340 squares off against a big-block Camaro in a quarter-mile grudge match that turns into a genuine wheelstand, the Demon’s front end clawing skyward as both cars fight for traction off the line. Commenters are still arguing over whether outspending an opponent’s engine build counts as a real win, and at least one former Demon 340 owner shows up in the replies to defend the underdog. The gap between the two cars’ elapsed times tells its own story. Watch to see how it plays out.

A four-figure winning margin does not always mean much at a quarter-mile track, but a wheelie that plants the front bumper toward the sky usually does. On one side of the line sits a small-block Dodge Demon, launching so hard its front end claws for the clouds. On the other, a Camaro carrying a big-block under the hood and, by at least one account, a lot more money invested in getting there. Whoever wins by a car length is not really the point of this pass. How each car gets down the track is.

The Demon 340: Dodge’s Budget Muscle Car

The Dodge Demon nameplate only existed for two model years, 1971 and 1972, built as a fastback badge-engineered cousin to the Plymouth Duster and aimed squarely at buyers who wanted genuine small-block performance without a big-block price tag. The 340-cubic-inch V8 under this particular Demon’s hood was the same high-output small-block Chrysler dropped into the ‘Cuda and Challenger T/A, just wearing a cheaper, lighter body, a formula that made the Demon a favorite among racers chasing quarter-mile times on a budget. Chrysler built the Demon specifically to compete with the Ford Maverick Grabber and Chevrolet Nova SS in a segment increasingly defined by insurance-friendly small-blocks rather than big-block displacement wars, which is exactly the class of car this Camaro is embarrassing on the track. Religious groups objected loudly enough to the name that Dodge quietly renamed the car Dart Sport for 1973, decades before Dodge revived “Demon” for a very different, factory drag car.

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Small Block vs Big Block, By the Numbers

According to Road Test TV’s own description, the big-block Camaro in this matchup posted an 8.69 in the quarter mile, while the small-block Demon’s runs settled into the 9-second range, a gap that lines up with the raw displacement and torque advantage a big-block typically holds over even a well-built 340. What the numbers do not capture is how each car gets there: a lighter small-block car generally launches flatter and picks up ground mid-track, while a big-block car often wins the fight for traction off the line and simply drives away. That gap holds up even before accounting for the wheelstand costing the Demon precious tenths off the line, which suggests the real-world difference between the two combinations may be even larger than the raw elapsed times alone suggest.

The Wheelie That Gave the Video Its Name

The video’s title, “Carrying the Wheels,” is not an exaggeration. One commenter described the Demon’s launch as airborne for “30ft, hang on buddy this is American muscle,” a front-end-up wheelstand violent enough that keeping the car pointed straight becomes its own skill separate from simply mashing the throttle. Wheelies look spectacular on camera, but they are also lost momentum; every foot spent with the front tires off the ground is a foot not spent accelerating, which factors directly into why a car capable of a dramatic launch does not always win the race. Plenty of drivers would have lifted early rather than risk looping the car; keeping it pinned through a launch that dramatic says as much about the driver’s confidence as it does about the car’s suspension geometry.

A Red Light Did Not Change the Story

Buried in the comments is a detail the video itself does not dwell on: “Damn, Demon jumped the gun and still got beat by a whole second.” A red light, leaving the starting line before the tree finishes its countdown, is an automatic loss under most drag racing formats regardless of elapsed time, but the fact that the Demon reportedly still trailed by a full second even accounting for its head start tells its own story about which car had the bigger performance advantage that day. Whether that rule got applied consistently at whatever track and event this footage came from is unclear from the video alone, but it is exactly the kind of technicality that turns a friendly grudge match into a comment-section debate years later.

Money Does Not Always Win the Argument

One comment cuts right to the heart of grudge-match bragging rights: “That little big block camaro has more dollars in the engine than the whole Demon.” It is an old argument in bracket racing circles, whether outspending an opponent’s build counts as a real win, or whether a budget small-block car that hangs close to a heavily invested big-block deserves more credit for the effort. Mopar loyalists in the comments clearly landed on the side of the underdog, wheelie and all.

Road Test TV’s No-Frills Approach to Drag Coverage

Road Test TV has kept its YouTube presence deliberately simple since at least 2013: raw quarter-mile footage, a website link, and little else in the way of production polish. That stripped-down approach is exactly why grudge-match clips like this one keep resurfacing more than a decade after they were filmed, there is no narration standing between the viewer and the launch, just two cars, a tree, and whatever happens once it drops green.

Why This Matchup Still Resonates

For anyone who owned a Demon 340 back when Dodge actually sold them new, this kind of footage hits differently. “I owned a 71 demon 340, sure miss that car,” one commenter wrote, echoing a sentiment that runs through plenty of the replies, a two-year-only nameplate that never got the sales numbers of the Duster or the Dart, but earned a disproportionate share of loyalty from the people who actually raced one. It is a small footnote, but it is exactly the kind of detail that keeps old grudge-match footage worth revisiting instead of scrolling past.

A Snapshot of Early-2010s Drag Culture on YouTube

This clip also captures a specific moment in online drag racing culture, the early-2010s wave of bracket-night and grudge-match videos uploaded with zero editing, back before slow-motion, drone footage, and sponsor overlays became standard. That rawness is part of the appeal for viewers today, offering an unfiltered look at exactly the kind of run-what-you-brung racing that still happens at local tracks every weekend, wheelies, red lights, and bragging rights included.

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