Class: LL3
Lap time: 3:03.5
Base price: $69,235
As-tested price: $73,725
707 hp • 4564 lb • 6.5 lb/hp
Tires: Pirelli P Zero, 275/40ZR-20 (106Y)
Let’s be honest: Nobody looks at this thing and thinks “track car.” Okay, maybe parallel tracks with Christmas trees, but no track with curves. The Charger is just so big, so heavy, so utterly Woodward Avenue. And considering that it has 46 more horsepower than the second-most-powerful car on this roster, the Ferrari 488GTB, it wears pretty skimpy tires. All four corners are borne by the same 275/40ZR-20 P Zeros, as dictated by the stock Charger bodywork. The Viper ACR has 355s in back, and it only has 645 horsepower. The Hellcat is the Hulk in Gucci pumps.
That said, it’s fun. You run over everything in your way: curbs, trees, flag stations, anything that threatens to make it turn any more than it really has to. And yet the main challenge in the Charger (see what we did there?) is to keep it pointed straight, because it pretty much wants to go all 4.1 miles sideways, backward, or just spinning like a Chinese pinwheel firecracker. The first time you light up a corner in full drift, you feel like a Valkyrie on the run. The problem comes at the next corner, when those same rear tires are now rubber fondue and there’s no grip. One drift begets more drifting, which begets a lousy lap time. Restraint may not be your thing at the Old Country Buffet, but it’s a requirement here.
Sector times, schmector times. Fine, the Hellcat posted just 0.89 g in Turn 1, about the same as a postal Jeep. It does indeed understeer, the reactor from the U.S.S. Nimitz being a somewhat heavy thing under the hood. Otherwise it scampered as best it could, running in a pack with far-lesser-powered but better-handling cars. Except on the main straight, where it nearly punched through to 150 mph. That’s better than a number of cars shoving a heck of a lot less air out of the way, including the Chevy Corvette. Power, baby!
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