Sure, the burnout was impressive. But the driver? Not so much.

With the Hellcat Challenger hitting showrooms and personal garages these past few months, you can bet that owners have been out showing off their 707+ horsepower Mopar to the locals. Whether it’s a few street races or even out at the strip, tires are being worn down and Hellcat owners are willing to take on almost everything in sight to prove they have the most powerful musclecar ever produced.

We’ve seen a few roll races with a C7 that didn’t bode well for the Corvette, and even one perhaps overzealous attempt to take on an F-16 fighter jet. Racing a fighter jet is nothing new, however, and we would certainly hope that anything the Big Three can produce won’t outpace a jet that costs more than $14 million.

And let’s not forget the driver who lost control of his Hellcat, possibly out showing off, and got to know a tree up close and personal. We drove the Hellcat for a week and it’s very impressive, but you have to know how to drive it, too.

The latest pairing up, however, takes place at Palm Beach International Raceway against a car that is equally as impressive as the Hellcat: the Tesla Model S sedan – the P85D, to be exact. The P85D is an all-wheel-drive setup that puts a 221 horsepower motor to the front wheels and a 470 horsepower motor at the rear wheels. The Tesla comes in at just over $105k, while the Hellcat ranges from $64k and up, depending on the dealer mark up.

In this match up, we see the Hellcat do one of its impressive burnouts as it sheds a little rubber, much to the crowd’s delight. The Tesla quietly approaches its prey like a hunter in the night, prepared to take on the Hellcat. They approach the line, but when staging at the tree is where this Hellcat driver loses all credibility.

Game over, you lose.

The Tesla is every bit an impressive car when it comes to performance, especially considering how quick it is and the range on the car before it needs recharging. But enthusiasts have a difficult time getting used to a car that doesn’t rumble, and they can’t get used to the quiet.

Perhaps the Hellcat driver isn’t skilled at drag racing, or he just couldn’t hold the car at the line, it’s tough to tell from our vantage point. But once the second staging light comes on is where things go downhill for the Hellcat driver, because he got on the gas a little, lunged forward, and subsequently red-lighted. Race over.

Does the P85D Tesla win the race? Of course, but only because the Hellcat driver lost the race before it even started. We’ll give it to the Tesla Model S, the combined 691 horsepower is very impressive, and taking down the 1320 in 11.683 is faster than most production cars available today on American soil. Be that as it may, we think a rematch is in order. Because a real drag race ends at the traps, not at the tree. What are your thoughts?