Camaro 1LE, Focus RS nearly beat 707hp Charger Hellcat in C&D's Lightning Lap

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Coming within $504 of the LL1 cap, the $34,495 Camaro 1LE steals more than eight seconds from the previous LL1 record holders. In doing so, it leaves in its wake a parade of more powerful and more expensive cars, and it absolutely stomps its current Blue Oval rival, the Mustang EcoBoost equipped with the Performance package. Were they on the track at the same time, the boosted Mustang would only be exiting Hog Pen onto the front straight as the Camaro crossed the start/finish line at 3:04. The Ford needs an additional 11.6 seconds to complete its lap. And it gets worse for Mustang acolytes: Despite a 100-hp deficit, the 1LE laps VIR faster than the eight-cylinder Mustang GT.

The first six-cylinder in the 28-year history of the 1LE badge, this Camaro offers far more grip than go. There’s so much stick and stability in corners that, through the spaghetti-noodle infield, the 1LE punches above its 335-hp rating with a quicker time in sector four than the Jaguar F-type Project 7, the 10-cylinder Audi R8, and the 707-hp Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, among others. At the limit, the Camaro defaults to a slight and manageable front-end push that makes the chassis feel imperturbable.

LL1 competitors often demand frequent cool-down laps (and immense self-control) to keep from glazing the rotors, melting the pads, or chunking the tires. Not so with this Camaro.

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One-point-three seconds. That’s the delta between the $42,245 Ford Focus RS and the $42,975 Mustang GT we ran here last year. That it falls in favor of the Focus has something to do with the Mustang’s 371 additional pounds—a penalty not sufficiently offset by the latter’s 85 additional horsepower.

The RS rewrites the rules about traditional track driving. It rewards flamboyance behind the wheel. And it flashes its bare-­assed Blue Oval to convention. Ironically, it’s more Wild West than the Ford named after a feral horse. Its greatness lies not in the last few tenths of a second shaved from a quick lap, but in the art of managing the perfect powerslide.

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The Charger is just so big, so heavy, so utterly Woodward Avenue. And considering that it has 46 more horsepower than the second-most-powerful car on this roster, the Ferrari 488GTB, it wears pretty skimpy tires. All four corners are borne by the same 275/40ZR-20 P Zeros, as dictated by the stock Charger bodywork. The Viper ACR has 355s in back, and it only has 645 horsepower. The Hellcat is the Hulk in Gucci pumps.

Sector times, schmector times. Fine, the Hellcat posted just 0.89 g in Turn 1, about the same as a postal Jeep. It does indeed understeer, the reactor from the U.S.S. Nimitz being a somewhat heavy thing under the hood. Otherwise it scampered as best it could, running in a pack with far-lesser-powered but better-handling cars. Except on the main straight, where it nearly punched through to 150 mph.

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