Over in Årsunda, Sweden, there is a two-day event known as the Speed Weekend, in which hundreds of vehicles in 40 different classes – from turbine-powered skis to full-on dragsters – all congregate on the same frozen lake and take turns mashing the throttle. Each makes their runs on either the 3.2 kilometer or 4 kilometer strips (that’s 2 miles and 2.5 miles, respectively), attempting to accelerate to the highest speed possible and come to a (controlled) stop.One of the vehicles participating in this year’s Speed Weekend happened to be a bone-stock Challenger Hellcat. The Hellcat, driven by the Swedish Alx Danielsson, not only came first in its class (which consisted of all supercharged vehicles above 3.0 liters), but also set itself a personal record on ice, with a top speed of 170.6 miles and hour.
If you’ve ever had the displeasure of driving a rear-wheel drive vehicle in the snow, you probably understand how easy it is to spin the tires and kick the back end out– it’s very easy to get very out of control. Imagine, then, navigating a 707-horsepower machine down a strip as fast as you possibly can.
Granted, this 707-horsepower machine has some seriously-studded tires and also weighs almost 4,500 pounds. But nevertheless, it takes some stones to push any car up to 170 miles an hour in the snow.
While it still came 30 miles an hour shy of its 202-mile an hour top speed, the fact that it was able to reach such a breakneck speed in the snow in 1 kilometer (just over 0.6 miles) is pretty astounding.