Posts Tagged: drag racing
Only around 80 of these Hurst-built Hemi Darts ever left the Hamtramck factory in 1968, stripped to the bone for one job: winning NHRA Super Stock races. One surviving example just turned up at a South Dakota drag strip running a 9.20 at 146 mph — except its owner pulled the rare original 426 Hemi for something even bigger. Here’s why that was actually the right call.
Stock-motor, stock-turbo quarter-mile racing is a surprisingly competitive corner of the Porsche 911 world, where a handful of tenths separates casual bragging rights from an actual record. This twin-turbo 911 leans on nitrous and drag radials rather than internal engine work to chase that record — a very different game than the heavily built cars dominating the outright quarter-mile books.
At the Pure Stock Drags in Stanton, Michigan, every muscle car on the property has to run with its original factory engine parts, carburetor, and stock-size tires — no modern upgrades allowed. Despite that, a small-block car once ran 11.88 seconds at 116 mph. Here’s why this stock-only quarter-mile tradition has lasted more than three decades.
Dodge built the Demon to dominate the quarter-mile every time. So when carwow lined it up against a Ford Mustang Dark Horse and a naturally aspirated Corvette Z06, the result was supposed to be a formality. It wasn’t. See how a flat-plane-crank Corvette and NASCAR driver Jessie Iwuji upended the expected outcome — and why fans are already demanding a rematch.
A beat-up 1972 Chevrolet Nova wearing dog-dish hubcaps and a decade of patina doesn’t look like it could outrun anything on four wheels. Under the hood, a twin-supercharged LS2 built by Kurt Urban makes 1,160 horsepower and sends the car into nine-second quarter-mile territory. Here’s the story behind one of the internet’s most famous sleepers.
A Ford Torino GT built for Street Car Takeover’s Heavy Street-style class went into eliminations with zero test passes — and still lifted its front wheels beating a 707-hp Hellcat Charger, a Hellcat Challenger, and a Cadillac CTS-V. See how a half-century-old Ford handled three modern factory muscle cars in one quarter-mile pass.
A featherweight 1970 Plymouth Duster 340 and a rare, dealer-installed 1967 Chevelle SS396 L78 lined up on a Pure Stock Muscle Car Drag Race strip, where every part has to match factory specs. The $2,547 economy car many owners still call a ‘Big Block Killer’ had to prove it against one of only 612 genuine L78 Chevelles built that year.
Ford built just 100 of these 1964 Fairlanes and disguised the 427 on the paperwork as a mild 289, then sent them drag racing against Mopar’s best. At the NHRA Winternationals, the two fastest cars in the field turned out to be two Thunderbolts racing each other. Here’s how a hand-built, fiberglass-paneled sedan won Ford a national championship in a single season.
A naturally aspirated Corvette Z06 was never supposed to beat a 707-horsepower supercharged Hellcat — especially not after giving it a head start. This drag racing compilation from Wheels pits the Z06 against a Hellcat, an Audi RS6, and one very confused Honda that ended up on the track by accident. The result surprised even the Corvette’s own fans watching along. Watch to see exactly how lopsided the numbers turned out to be.