The World’s Greatest American Drag Race: Nine Cars, 8,302 Horsepower, Two Winners

The Founding Fathers saw this coming. They knew power left unchecked invariably lusts after more power. Sure, the powdered wigs were concerned with protecting this country from tyrants a century before internal combustion, but the principle is universal. Left to restrain their own impulses, American automakers have pretty much chosen not to. Isn’t this country amazing?

After four days on roads and racetrack, we ended our celebration of American automotive engineering with a party so simple a caveman could appreciate it. We added players to the mix to line up some of America’s quickest, loudest, and generally most awesome cars and trucks on an Air Force runway, stood on the go pedals, and captured what happened. We call it the World’s Greatest American Drag Race.

The Most American Starting Grid Ever

It’s a motley crew, stretching from $56,630 to $2.4 million and from 510 to 1,250 hp. The high-downforce Czinger 21C and Chevy Corvette ZR1X we used to lap Chuckwalla and attack mountain roads were replaced with low-drag versions capable of higher top speeds. Our two other long haulers simply changed their shoes. The 1,234-hp Lucid Air Sapphire switched from street tires back to Pirelli P Zero Trofeo RS stickers, and the 815-hp Ford Mustang GTD got a fresh set of Pilot Sport Cup 2 Rs.

Rivian sent its 1,025-hp four-motor R1T Quad pickup. Tesla, which built its last Model S on the same day we held this race, fielded the 845-hp Cybertruck Beast and the 510-hp Model 3 Performance. The Cadillac PR team happily indulged our request for a CT5-V Blackwing instead of the brand’s quickest car, the electric Lyriq-V. With a manual transmission, rear-wheel drive, and a mere 668 hp, the sport sedan didn’t stand a chance in the race but won our hearts with every blip of the throttle and flick of the shifter.

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GMC declined to send its 1,160-hp three-motor Hummer pickup, and Dodge kept its electric and gas Chargers home, which speaks louder than anything we might have said about any of those vehicles. It looked for a moment like we wouldn’t have any representation from the company that built its brand on the Hellcat V-8. Then Fox Factory Vehicles came through with something even better, the Jeep Wrangler Commando 392. Fox is building 250 Commandos and selling them to active-duty military and veterans, each in mil-spec green with a canvas top stretched over the rollover bars and tubular steel half-doors, a 3.5-inch lift, and 37-inch tires. Ours also had the optional Whipple supercharger, which boosts the 6.4-liter V-8’s output to 705 hp.

Runway Ready, Cake Optional

We raced at one of the oldest U.S. military airfields in operation, March Air Reserve Base. Its main runway measures 2.5 miles long—and, crucially, 250 feet wide. Having wrangled these goat rodeos before, we know the massive tires on these cars will find and fire off any pebble that’s loose on the runway, so we protected some of the mid-pack cars with Xpel paint protection film and windshield protection. After staging the cars, a U.S.A. birthday cake was produced, candles were lit, and the exhaust from the ZR1X’s 1,064-hp V-8 blew out the flames and destroyed a layer of frosting.

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It was race time. The gas cars revved against launch control limiters, broadcasting a staccato tut-tut-tut while the EVs gave no hint of what they were about to do.

Three … two … one … Go!

When 1,200 Horsepower Feels Normal

The Air Sapphire broke character for a split second and went feral. It jumped off the line with a jolt, like a teenager revving the family minivan to 3,000 rpm and slamming the gear selector from neutral to drive. The 21C launched even harder, sucked off the line from the front end by two electric motors and pushed from behind by the mid-mounted twin-turbo V-8.

In an attempt to coach us to a 0–60 time quicker than two seconds and a quarter-mile time starting with an eight, Chevy handed over a 28-point checklist. We followed it religiously, yet those times continued to elude us. The Lucid was the only car in the drag race to sneak in under two seconds. Don’t lose sight of the big picture, though. All three of the front-runners created their own time-warping acceleration.

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The first three positions held through the quarter mile, where Lucid claimed the win. The Czinger was just 20 feet behind it, breaking the finish line 0.09 second later, with the Corvette a little more than a car length behind it.

Meanwhile, the Mustang was running an entirely different race. Every AWD car got the jump on the rear-drive Ford, but once the tires dug in and the engine came to its 7,650-rpm boil, the GTD’s supercharged Predator engine started hunting down prey. It picked off the Model 3 first and then the Cybertruck 476 feet off the line. The Rivian beat the Ford to 100 mph by 0.01 second and didn’t let up. It finished the quarter mile 0.02 second before the Mustang.

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Associate road test editor Erick Ayapana brought up the tail in the Cadillac. While everyone else just stood on the right pedal, he worked the six-speed stick and clutch to keep the car in the race, but he did have some help. No-lift-shift logic let him slam into second, third, and fourth with his right foot planted. The Cadillac crossed the quarter mile in 11.7 seconds, 0.69 second behind the Model 3. We wouldn’t have it any other way if it meant losing the Blackwing’s increasingly rare character.

The Wrangler Commando, which is more fun than it is fast, made its own competition, taking a running start to be competitive. Had it run an honest race, it would have hit 60 mph in 3.6 seconds. From a standstill it runs the quarter mile in 12.3 seconds at 108.0 mph.

The Half-Mile Changes Everything

The top five cars pushed on to the half mile. The Rivian hit its 131-mph governor shortly after clearing the quarter mile, allowing the Mustang GTD to blow by en route to a 16.50-second half mile at 161.7 mph. The R1T got to the checkered flag in 17.35 seconds.

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Two-thousand feet into the run and 640 feet from the finish line, the Czinger inched ahead of the Lucid and kept pulling. The California-made hypercar flashed across the finish in 14.40 seconds at 187.9 mph. Exactly 0.1 second later, the Arizona-built EV slipped past the mark. Not bad for a five-seat luxury car. The ZR1X stopped the clock in 14.70 seconds.

We’re living in the golden age of American horsepower, with no sign of things decelerating. Give it a few years, and today’s 1,200-hp monsters may be outmoded by a new band of performance machines with more power, more grip, and more raw speed.