Electric COPO Camaro Achieves 9 Second Pass

Two weeks ago, a car (very) quietly made is maiden voyage down the drag strip at the preseason test session held at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park. While there was plenty of buzz about the test session and the professional NHRA teams on hand to work out their off-season cobwebs, Chevrolet’s eCOPO Camaro made it’s first trip down the 1320 and set off a hellish debate online.

For whatever reason, throngs of naysayers took to their keyboards to denounce the eCOPO, Chevy’s first all-electric drag car concept, heralding it “the end of drag racing as we know it” among other hate-fueled comments. The car debuted late in 2018 at the Performance Racing Industry Trade Show in Indianapolis to what seemed to be a largely popular reception, but as soon as the car hit the track, the attitude seemed to shift noticeably.

Ironically enough, the car’s performance on the track seems to be of little to no consequence, with the first pass lighting the boards at 10.14 at 130 MPH. No, it’s not the car’s numbers that seems to fuel the hate from the fans, it’s the sound it makes. Despite launching into a nice wheels-up start and running straight down the groove, both of which should be sources of compliments, the fans had little positive to say about the car.

I get it. The car… whirrs. It doesn’t idle or rev through open headers, you just hear a faint whirring sound from the electric motors, much like Teslas. And also like Teslas, this thing is fast. After testing in Phoenix at 80% capacity,  the car made it’s official NHRA debut at the Winternationals in Pomona with the juice turned up even higher and clicked off its first 9-second pass, laying down an impressive 9.83 at 134 MPH. Just like in Phoenix, the car left hard with the wheels in the air, but without all that exhaust noise, will the fans continue to hate?

I guess we’ll just have to see if they come around to the idea. Tell us what you think in the comments!