The Mopar Mile High Nationals is one of the best known, best attended, and most fun events on the NHRA national event trail. Mopar is heavily involved with the production of the deal and hosts big pre-race parties, has a huge presence at the track, and generally comes up with some neat promotional ideas to make the whole experience better and more fun for fans. This year they decided to pit a band new Hellcat powered Challenger against a real-deal 1971 Hemi Challenger. This was obviously done as an illustration of how powerful the new car is even in the face of what many consider to be the most mighty engine of the muscle car era, the 426 Hemi.
The density altitude at Bandimere on a great day is 5,000ft. It was over 9,000ft when this run was made. Even in that choking air, the car went low 12s and over 110mph on street tires. Trust me when I say that I am not writing this to defend Mopar, Chrysler, cheer on the Hellcat, or because of some other obligation. I am writing it because the collective stupidity of the internet finally got to me on a level that I felt warranted a response. See, every dink keyboard commando has been talking about how Chrysler “lied” about the performance numbers and how the earlier videos of the car running bottom 11s and high 10s were faked. None of them have an effing clue as to what happens when you take a car from sea level to the literal top of a mountain and it is annoying as hell.
Earlier in the weekend, the Hellcat car was run against the Challenger with the clocks off. Initially I thought that was a lame move and then after thinking about it, I thought it was smart because the response would be negative when the car was shown going slower than it had previously. Well, they decided to turn the clocks back on and the result is what you see below. The car is insanely fast for something you can simply plunk down money for and drive off the lot. The thing weighs like 4,000lbs and in 9,000 feet of air on street tires it nearly hits the 11s and is a shade less than 120mph. I’d post some of the idiotic crap that I’ve been reading but you already know what it sounds like. People without a clue that want to yell about how one brand sucks and the other is better for no reason. If you read enough of it, your brains will leak out of your ear.
Maybe someone who was around during the muscle car era could answer a question. Was it like this back then? If Pontiac had run the 1964 GTO at sea level and then run it on top of an effing mountain a couple of weeks later would people have known why it went slower? Are we collectively that much dumber? Annoying!
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE THE HELLCAT RUN AT BANDIMERE DURING THE NHRA MOPAR MILE HIGH NATIONALS –
You nailed it, people are collectively stupider, the Hellcat is fast at ant altitude
sorry, meant ANY
Brian, I think your comment pretty much sums up the mentality of 95% that comment on YouTube
“People without a clue that want to yell about” (everything)
I clearly remember when this Bangshift article came out, GuitarSlinger aka ColoradoKid didn’t believe it even though it happened in his own back yard. Brian had to set the record straight with the pompous one, and Brian wasn’t too happy about it.
As a brilliant man once said.
There are two things that are infinite, the universe and people’s stupidity, and I,m not sure about the universe.
Albert Einstein
For sure youtube`s comment section is an open sewer.
Fans of both the other brands have posted really stupid comments about this car out of simple jealousy. As a Mopar fan I take it as a compliment for the “home team” brand.
They’re Ignorant and they’re all drinking the same Kool Aid
you’re right stupidity exist read the manual people say car missus second gear the manual says it has a lockout of second year below 17 of commenting instead of commenting poorly on the car read the manual even though it is 3 inches thick
sorry year is supposed to be gear
OK I speak from experience. I have drag raced at the finest sea level tracks in the world including the worlds best Lions Drag Strip in Long Beach, California. And not just a few times. I made over 100 passes at Lions and even held the track record of couple of times. I also lived in Colorado Springs and raced at Bandimere. Our low twelve car in California ran low fourteens to high thirteens at Bandimere. Our mid tens car ran high to mid elevens on a cool day and a lot slower on warm summer days. For more on this just look at the track records for Infinion Raceway in California and Bandimere. Across the board the records are slower. I also have raced at Bonneville and I can tell you that without a blower hooked up I ran a best of 116 mph. We hooked up the blower and ran 159 mph. That was with only ten pounds of boost. I know first hand how altitude effects an internal combustion engine. So with that said that Hellcat is one bad ass street car. Anyone who says otherwise is just plain stupid or jealous or brand blind.
I’m on my early 50’s. Back in the day, people understood about having to adjust the carburetor for altitude differences. And how important fuel\air ratios were. Etc, so on and so forth.
This new fuel injected, computer controlled world doesn’t seem to get that kind of stuff. And, like you said, there are a boatload of idiots out there.
Uh guys, before beating your chests and fist bumping too much… that Hellcat is supercharged and does not lose near as much as that naturally aspirated 426 did at altitude. Check the NHRA correction factors for both blown and carb’d gas engines to verify this.
The early car didn’t lose two whole seconds though so it would still lose at Sonoma but not by as much.
Modern electronic fuel direct injection is much more efficient at altitude than the old carbureted cars . My 63 chevy 283 wouldn’t go up Ute pass in high gear when it was new. My 3.5 L Honda V6 gets 28 mpg at 80 mph on 3 cylinders at 9000 ft. on the level in Wyoming
….That is 1 mpg better than it gets at 600 ft in Missouri.
while it sure seems like the collective stupidity has been increasing exponentially (just look at what’s on TV now for example – especially the TLC and Discovery channels), I’m going to be optimistic and hope that it’s not. The difference now, however, is the internet, where every blathering moron has a world stage to demonstrate and broadcast their idiocy. That didn’t exist in the 60’s.
There is a chart you can pull up that shows how much HP you lose for every 1000ft above sea level. At 6500ft you lose around 33% of your HP. The best way to get around this is to run a turbo, a Supercharger helps but drains HP off the belt. I bought my 09 RT Challenger at sea level and moved back to Colorado and felt a immediate loss of power.
Everything is “a conspiracy”, these days.
Maybe if people just weren’t so gullible, and were better educated.
Back in the day, gearheads were the only ones (for the most part) who bought muscle cars. Also, WE were much more KNOWLEDGEABLE about performance equipment.
my 71 hemi cuda ran mid thirteens in calgary , alberta , at 3100 ft and a DA of 4500 ft , my duster ran mid 12’s my cuda weighed 4150 lbs , duster 2765 , people have a poor memory of how “fast” their cars went or their imagination sets in , lol .