The last three weeks have given me one of the best cross slices of the modern hot rodding universe I have ever experienced. I bounded from an NHRA event in Houston to the ECTA season opener in Ohio, to the Diesel Power Challenge in Denver, and then home into the loving arms of a Hellcat Challenger for the weekend (we’re actually out shooting it for a feature as you read this today). The end result of the sleepless and busy weeks is that I’m literally stunned at what “regular guys” are able to do and achieve in today’s world of high performance and in the end I am pretty well convinced that the law of ever shrinking returns may be looming closer and closer.

There have been leaps and bounds of performance improvements made in the last 10-15 years. The widespread adaptation of fuel injection, the technological advancements in creating and managing boost, the explosion in suspension and tire technology for racers demanding ever better performance out of ever shrinking contact patches, the blossoming of pro touring as a full blown movement, and more events, venues, and classes to get your speed fix in. The long and short of it is that we’re living in the greatest performance age ever and I’m honestly questioning how much deeper into the crazy we can go. Yes, guys will always find increments to shave off and small numbers to advance but are we done leaping places?

While the NHRA event provides a much different backdrop on modern performance than other places, it is impossible to not notice how many Drag Pack, Cobra Jet, and COPO machines were entered into stock and super stock and how brutally fast they are right out of the box. Yes, they are brutally expensive as well but you are paying for what you are getting, which is a something that can throw down competitively right out of the gate in two of the toughest classes in drag racing. Top Fuel dragster starting to sniff 300mph in the eighth mile and alcohol cars running into the 5.30s? Yes, this is all happening today.

The more BangShifty stuff happens far away from those big events though. Starting with the ECTA weekend my mind was blown by the sheer number of people going 200mph and the variety of ways they were doing it. Motorcycles were popular of course but there were guys running 200mph blown on gasoline, turbocharged, naturally aspirated with cubic inches, etc. The best part is that these were not corporately backed giant race teams. These were regular Joe’s who wrench and toil and bleed until they do what they think will work and the come try it out. If it does work they try to make it better and if it does not they start again. If you had told the dry lakes racers back in the 1940s that there would be a time when you could literally shelf build a 200mph car in at least a dozen different ways they’d have thrown you to the desert and let you rot. Those days are here right now and you can see them with you own eyes. Better yet you can participate in them!

Moving on from there was the Diesel Power Challenge event that I have been a part of for a few years in Denver, Colorado. 10 pickup trucks are voted into the competition by readers of Diesel Power Magazine and they are made up of three Dodges, three Fords, and three GMs. By and large the trucks are owned and wrenched on by younger guys from the middle of the country or up in Canada. These are not machines to be trifled with. Compound turbos on bored and stroked engines that have injectors that would blow your mind, we saw Mustang chassis dyno numbers of 1200+ rear wheel horsepower and torque figured that were blowing past 2,000 lb/ft. That is mind boggling and not only were they dyno heroes, the trucks were street driven all over the place, they drag raced (into the 10s!), pulled trailers, and went sled pulling as well. Again, while these trucks are certainly cream of the crop stuff, they are not space shuttles packed full of technology only NASA knows about. You can get in on this as well. Just crazy.

Finally, after closing out Diesel Power I arrived home to find this screaming green lump of automotive perfection in my driveway. A 2015 Challenger Hellcat with a six speed stick in it. This is a 707hp car that retails for $62,000 and has a factory warranty. You’ll be getting a full review of it stat but the short story here is that this car is a weapon and anyone can own it. In a single swoop the Challenger Hellcat rewrote the world’s concept of a muscle car. L88 Corvettes, LS6 Chevelles, High Riser 427 anything, Tri-Power Pontiacs, etc have all been relegated to the fun old toy pile because on their best day they can’t carry this thing’s spare tire (in stock form). That is not a put down on the muscle cars as much as it is a recognition of the completely bat crap performance of the Hellcat. Once again, anyone can buy it for less than the cost of a luxury SUV.

I don’t bring all of this stuff up as some sort of brag. If that is all you came away with here, you missed it completely. My point was less of a travel journal and more of an open plea to enjoy what we have going on now because there is no way that in 10 years things will look like they do in the automotive landscape. Now, if things are faster, cheaper, and even more accessible, I’ll eat my hat. For now I’ll be satisfied with eating anything that wants to screw with me in this Hellcat.