Stop Telling The two thousand eighteen Dodge Demon Is Banned From The Dragstrip
Stop Telling The two thousand eighteen Dodge Demon Is Banned From The Dragstrip
On April eleven th , Dodge dropped an 840hp bomb in the form of a wide-fendered Dodge Challenger, the long awaited Dodge Demon. The car is amazing, it’s super prompt, it lifts the tires and it’s street legal. All of that is excellent, but what has been predominant the news feeds is Dodge’s claim that the quick car is banned from NHRA.
“Why build a car you can’t race?” cried the internet.
Well, let’s unpack the marketing from the facts.
“It’s not the make that is banned,” says Scott Smith of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). “You can bring a Dodge Demon to an NHRA track, but if you run under that 10-second barrier, they’re going to require that you meet the safety standards.”
Let’s repeat that. The Dodge Demon is NOT “banned” from dragstrips. It just has to go after the same rules that any other 9-second car needs to go after. That means that if you want to make numerous runs or run in competition with a Demon in race tune, you’re going to need to put a box in it—not a corset bar, not a roll bar, but a utter ‘cage, which includes door bars. This would make the car less than convenient as a street driver, but not unlikely. If you don’t want to do that, you can still run 9s at the dragstrip, you’ll just have to go to a fresh dragstrip whenever the old one figures out your game and kicks you off track.
If you just want to take your Demon out to a test-n-tune night, leave it on pump gas and you’ll be likely to run 10s all evening unless your track is very gooey and you are exceptionally good. On ninety one octane the Demon runs 9.96, which is in optimal conditions with a Dodge engineer or Top Fuel driver testing it. In average conditions on an average track, we’d put our money on Ten.Ten all day. No bar required for Ten.10s.
“You can bring the car to any NHRA member track and go out, it’s only once you hit below that 10-second number that they’d talk to you about the ‘cage,” Smith explained. “You’d also need fire clothing (jacket and pants) and a Level six competition license at that point.”
Getting a comp license isn’t a big deal, it’s just some paperwork, $150 and the witness signature of an already licensed driver on a series of launches and half passes to prove you aren’t a finish numbskull at speed.
“Banned” is good bragging, but it’s not truly true, so if you’re one of the fortunate folks who will be able to afford the Demon, go ahead and buy one. You’ll be able to race it.
