The Dodge Demon Is Here At Last And It's So Fast It's Been Banned From Racing

When the US National Hot Rod Association certified the new Dodge Demon's drag strip time, they immediately banned it for being too fast. Instant legend status guaranteed

Matt Kimberley

12 Apr 2017

The Dodge Demon launch saga is over at last, and it’s good news! The strip-ready supercharged 6.2-litre monster will have a mighty 840bhp; a healthy whack more than people had previously thought.

That huge power figure, matched with 770lb ft of angry, means a showroom-fresh 9.65-second quarter-mile. It’s so damn fast that it’s already been banned from competition by the American National Hot Rod Association, which certified the time on a real drag strip. Hell yes. Banned for being too fast? Well played, Dodge. We love it. We’ll even forgive the 14 mildly irritating weeks of teasers.

It hits the incredible new benchmark drag time with a combination of systems that help it launch with 1.8g of force. That is incredible. Dodge says that’s a harder launch than any production car, ever. Zero to 30 takes one second, 60 is smashed in 2.3 seconds, 100mph is yours in 5.1 seconds, and at the quarter-mile finish line it’s doing 140mph. Take that, Tesla.

We already knew about the semi-slick drag tyres, proper trans brake and strengthened driveline, not to mention its ability to run 100-octane racing fuel, but now we can see the whole thing as the makers intended. The front rubber is super-skinny, as per a proper drag car, and the launch is so fierce that the Demon actually wheelies.

The Dodge Demon Is Here At Last And It's So Fast It's Been Banned From Racing

The Demon is also already a step closer than expected to the power figure revealed by Hennessey for its highly-tuned Chevrolet Camaro, dubbed The Exorcist in direct response to the Demon.

Dodge’s final, four-minute video majors on the Demon’s drag speed potential, and we can’t blame them. This, right here and now, is a sub-10-second car straight out of the box. No overnight parts from Japan required.

Comments

You owe me a 10-second car!

Pfffffft, why not a 9 second car?

I think the main reason it got banned by the NHRA is due to the lack of NHRA certified roll cage and some other regulated safety equipment. The cage will need to be good for at least 9.50 quarter mile. I am running into similar issues at the moment with my car too. And a level 6 NHRA competition license is needed for the driver too, since the car can do sub 10 seconds quarter mile pass consistently.

My thoughts exactly. The car doesn’t out-class the competition, it out-classes itself. Modify a Mustang to the same level and you run into the exact same problems.

I’m having a hard time figuring out who this car was really made for. People buying a $100k (at least?) sports car don’t want some one dimensional monster they can barely drive anywhere else. And folks who are super into drag racing can build something so much more capable for so much less money.

I’m just not sure where the crossover is.

First of all: there’s no price yet, so we don’t know that it is $100k yet; and second of all, it will be popular in the same way that the FXX, FXXK, and the Zonda R were popular- expensive, and useless at anything other than what they were built for.

Don’t forget this car is road legal, and Dodge themselves said you can add packages to make it a 4 passenger car, with a nice speaker system, and overall comfortability that you’d except from a capable daily driver. So “barely drive anywhere else (one dimensional monster)..” isn’t accurate.

Why not just put the Demon in a different class that it would be allowed in?

Any vehicle that fast is required by the NHRA to have a roll cage.

So basically, this thing is a hot rival to the Copo Camaro. Should be bloody exciting to drive!

How can a car be banned from a competition that’s about being fast in a straight line, for being too fast in a straight line??? Help??

Maybe its too fast for its class….But I’m not sure.

There are strict rules that may seem strange to us but work perfectly fine on the other side of the pond. The safety rule says that if you run under 10sec. 1/4 you should have roll cage in place. Since the Demon doesn’t have it, it is not allowed to run on those tracks. It is not banned for being too fast it is banned because it lacks roll cage.

On a plus note, we’re already seeing a dump of hellcats on the used market. So prices will go down, the SRT 392 and the Scat Pack will also drop in price. So maybe high performance challengers will become very affordable for the masses soon