The eternal feud among Detroit’s Big Three automakers is practically older than internal combustion itself, regularly spilling out of corporate boardrooms and onto drag strips. At Canada’s Mission Raceway Park,a quarter-mile NHRA-sanctioned sanctuary in British Columbia featuring a nine-turn road course and a motocross track,the latest chapter unfolded during the Thunder by the River event.
In the staging lane stood a stealthy silver Chevrolet Corvette C8 equipped with black wheels, an aggressive aero package, and a massive rear wing. Underneath the aero theatricals sat the E-Ray, Chevrolet’s 655-horsepower hybrid beast boasting electrified all-wheel drive. Lining up opposite the silver hybrid was the quintessential American muscle caricature: a crimson red Dodge Challenger Hellcat sporting widebody fender flares, dark wheels, and enough supercharged bravado to shake the grandstands.
The E-Ray driver, evidently attending their very first drag race, botched the staging alignment entirely. Spotting the novice error, the Hellcat pilot aggressively launched on the green light, snatching an instant lead off the tree.
Unfortunately for Mopar fans, raw supercharged muscle couldn’t hold off modern electronic wizardry. Once the E-Ray driver remembered which pedal went to the floor, the hybrid catapulted past the big Dodge. The Challenger limped across the beam in a painfully sluggish 12.44 seconds at 120 mph, while the E-Ray took the win in 11.37 seconds at 122 mph.
Fresh off that moral victory, the silver E-Ray returned for some friendly intra-brand violence against a grey Corvette C8 ZR1. This time, track marshals stepped in to manually guide the drivers into position, saving everyone from another staging catastrophe. Off the line, the E-Ray’s front electric motor delivered its signature AWD leap, leaving the rear-wheel-drive ZR1 momentarily trailing in its wake. But physics eventually remembered that the ZR1 packs a twin-turbo V8 monster beneath its glass hatch.
The ZR1 reeled in the hybrid, stopping the clock at 10.6 seconds to the E-Ray’s 11.02 seconds. It was a respectable win, but far off the ZR1’s true potential, proving once again that having supercar horsepower is easy, but actually knowing how to drive one remains a completely separate optional package.
