You get that right? The Demon’s key development targets were to pull a wheelie and smash the quarter-mile in under 10secs. “Our goal from day one was, in street trim with pump gas, to do 9s and pull the wheels”. I talk to Tim Kuniskis, whose job title (head of passenger car brands, FCA North America) does nothing to convey his passion for his most extreme product. Because there can be no greater ambition than that. Because that’s what the Demon is: a Challenger Hellcat prepped for the strip, with no greater ambition than to race in a straight line. Given how much this country loves drag racing, it’s almost a surprise it’s taken this long to create a production car that’s designed specifically to do just that. Yet Dodge proudly claims it can inject fuel into the cylinders at a rate not far off your bathroom tap. Name me a European marque that would boast about its car having the “highest fuel-flow rate of any production car”. I’m beginning to, after I’ve talked to the man preparing the track for the PDRA drag meet (see panel), seen the tattoos, chatted to competitors about pulleys, grooves and staging, and boggled at the amount of money that must have been hosed on the cars, the strip, the facilities. We might have Santa Pod, but we don’t truly understand.

We don’t really get drag racing in Europe. How do God-fearing Christian Americans square this circle? Because, my God, do they love this car – around here, the Demon is the second coming. And we have a car named the Demon, spawn of Hellcat. But there are no casual observers around here, because this is the drag belt, where racing is a religion and the church is the quarter-mile strip at Lucas Oil Raceway.

Drag cars wheelies