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At HOT ROD Drag Week, cars aren’t allowed to trailer between tracks — every quarter-mile pass has to be followed by a real highway drive to the next stop. On day one of the 2026 event at Route 66 Raceway, that didn’t stop two drivers from breaking into the 5-second zone for the first time in seven years, with a Camaro right on their heels.
A factory-built 808-horsepower Dodge Demon versus a 641-horsepower Porsche 911 Turbo S sounds like a mismatch on paper. But the Porsche’s all-wheel-drive launch has quietly beaten cars with twice its power before, and this quarter-mile showdown puts that reputation to the test. Here’s what’s really deciding the race, and it isn’t horsepower.
At the 2026 NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, one Stock Eliminator racer sent the front wheels of a completely unmodified muscle car off the pavement — and NHRA’s own rulebook says it’s perfectly legal. Bobby Fazio’s coverage captures 35 minutes of staging lane interviews, in-car runs, and mid-track action from one of NHRA’s most historic stops, including a wagon several fans called the best-appearing car in the field. Watch to see why a factory suspension can throw a wheelie a wheelie-bar car would need a tech inspection for.
Most 1970 Mercury Cyclone Spoilers built with the rare 429 Super Cobra Jet have long since vanished. One owner didn’t just save his — he races it in a class that demands factory-look parts and stock-style tires, and it’s turning 11-second quarter miles. Here’s the story behind Detroit’s most overlooked 429.
Built in 1956 as one of the first true drag strips in the country, Cordova Dragway just pulled a crowd big enough to stop longtime regulars in their tracks. The 2026 World Series of Drag Racing brought six-figure vintage muscle cars and a 30-year-old match-racing club back to the same Illinois quarter-mile, and the numbers in the stands tell their own story.
A numbers-matching 1972 Oldsmobile 442 W-30 squared off against a Buick GSX Stage 1, a Pontiac Trans Am SD-455, and a Hemi Road Runner in a strict Pure Stock Drags shootout. Only Chevrolet’s chronically underrated L88 Corvette could put it away. Here’s how the torque-heavy 455 stacked up against three of Detroit’s most famous engines – and why it still gets called one of the most underrated muscle cars ever built.
A Dodge Challenger Hellcat and Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 lined up for a rolling highway pull, the kind of real-world test that does not always agree with drag-strip time slips. The Hellcat’s 57-horsepower advantage on paper met the ZL1’s lighter chassis and quicker-spooling supercharger on the open road. Read on to see why the result depended more on speed range and gearing than on the horsepower figures alone.
A 1969 Chevy Nova rolled into Roadkill Garage as a bare shell — and rolled out packing more than 1,000 horsepower. Hosts David Freiburger and Steve Dulcich built the entire street/strip package from scratch, then hauled it straight to the track to see if the numbers held up. Fans are calling it one of the show’s best comebacks yet.
A 1969 Yenko Camaro and a 1970 Ford Torino Super Cobra Jet squared off under strict factory-stock rules — no headers, no lightweight parts, nothing but what rolled off the assembly line. One car gave up 412 pounds and 75 horsepower on paper. The finish line told a much closer story than the spec sheet promised.
Jeff Lutz’s twin-turbo, 3,000-horsepower ’57 Chevy squared off again against Alex Taylor’s street-driven ’55 at the 2026 Tri-Five Nationals — and the power gap didn’t tell the whole story. Fans who expected a lopsided pass instead got a race close enough to argue about for days. Here’s what makes these two Tri-Five builds, and the family history behind them, worth knowing.
A humble 300-horsepower rating made Oldsmobile’s 1972 442 W-30 look like it had lost the muscle car war. Then it squared off against a genuine L88 Corvette — one of only 116 ever built — in a quarter-mile grudge match that exposes exactly how misleading that number really was. Here’s the story behind two of the era’s most misunderstood engines.
A rare 429-powered 1970 Ford Torino Cobra rolled into a vintage NMCA drag event on nothing but factory-width rubber — and dipped into the 12s anyway. Ford built barely two thousand of these with the big engine, and far fewer with the gearing to make a pass like this possible. Here’s the math behind one of the toughest quarter-miles in muscle car history.
