Last week I had a chance to head out to Portland International Raceway to spend some time behind the wheel of the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat. To show off the capabilities of the 707 horsepower muscle car, the folks from Dodge had me tackle both the 1.96 mile road course and the quarter mile drag strip – and I had the GoPro Hero3 strapped to the outside of the car to catch all of the racing action from an all-new perspective.
First up, we have the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat on the quarter mile drag strip in Oregon. All of the vehicles provided for drag strip testing were fitted with the TorqueFlite 8-speed automatic transmission and the standard production rear tires – not the drag radial tires that allowed the Hellcat to turn in an NHRA certified time of 10.85 at 126 miles per hour. I was fortunate enough to make two runs down the quarter mile, first in a black 2015 Challenger Hellcat and then the same car in bright red. On my first run in the black Challenger, I managed to lay down an 11.8 at 118 miles per hour on the fully unprepped track, where launching was a real challenge…so say the least. On my second run, I tried to come out a little hard and I lost traction, forcing me to run a disappointing 12.5 at 116 miles per hour.
Each run is shown below and with the black Challenger, I didn’t turn the video off until I got back to the staging area so you can hear the supercharged Hemi as I drive somewhat normally.
In addition to attacking the quarter mile, the Chrysler Group set us loose on the 1.97 mile road course to show off that this is more than just a straight line missile. To help me see the difference between the 2015 Challenger SRT 392 and the SRT Hellcat (other than the huge power differential), I took to the road course in each of the two top performing Challengers for the 2015 model year. Below are two videos – one with me driving a bright red SRT 392 and the second with me driving a black SRT Hellcat.
For each run, I began by making one warm up lap, followed by two high speed, all out laps, followed by a cool down lap before running into the garage area for a car change. In each of the two runs, there were five cars on the track and I both started and finished in front – so you wont see any passing action but you will see plenty of hard cornering and high speed straights, with me piloting the 707 horsepower Challenger up over the 140mph mark on the back stretch.
The audio in these videos is half of the fun, so make sure that you have your speakers cranked up, grab a drink, kick back and enjoy my clips of the new Challenger SRT Hellcat being raced in two different venues.
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