While drag racing many seem like a relatively simple concept on the surface, there’s no question that there’s more to it than meets the eye. It’s a truth that many rookie racers have learned the hard way — their first trip to the drag strip culminating in jeers and embarrassment. And just because one can afford a particularly expensive performance-minded car and cruise the roadways with it, doesn’t mean it’s equally as simple to go down a quarter-mile with it. Especially if their driving skills are as ‘green’ as they are to drag racing.

With a starting price of $60,000 and most dealers marking them up to an even higher price tag based on demand, the new Dodge Challenger Hellcat certainly isn’t a car that just anyone has the disposable income to acquire. Like any fast, premium car, the ownership demographic no doubt runs the gamut from those familiar with the power to those after a status symbol who actually belong in a Prius. And somewhere in between those two poles are the drivers of these two Hellcats that were out making runs at the Texas Motorplex near Dallas last Friday.

The two lucky Hellcat owners paired up for a run, and seem to have the whole process together until lighting both sets of stage beams. At that point, both drivers went to excessive powerbraking and began to do literal burnouts right there on the starting line. To be fair, powerbraking is a common thing for street car racers at the track without a line-lock to help cut a light and get the car through sixty-feet quicker than it would leaving from idle. But if you’re spinning the tires, you’ve obviously gone too far, and these guys both did just that.

Now, whether these two simply went a little overboard with the engine RPM and the starting line couldn’t hold the tires from spinning, or they’ve been watching too many movies that present the false idea that spinning the tires to “slingshot” your way down the track is a question only they can answer, but the starter was clearly furious at their churning-up of the rubber on his starting line….not once, but three times by the driver in the right lane. The fact that he allowed the guy to back up and try it again twice, after already slamming down his starter switch once was a lesson in patience in itself.

Another key point you’ll notice is the lack of a helmet on the guy in the left lane (and probably the right) with cars capable of running 11’s stock and which end up running 11.27 and 12.11 — well under the NHRA’s 13.99 helmet rule. So, if the burnouts weren’t enough to get these guys shut down for the night after this run, that may have done it.

Video credit: RandTx