Prius at the Houston Raceway

Last night the Prius went to the drag strip.

My wife's dad has a '57 Chevy with 572 cu in engine that produces 900 hp and turns mid 8s in the 1/4 mile. Unfortunately it dropped a transmission in the fifth run of the night.

My wife ran one of our Prius in between Chevy runs. It was pretty fun sitting in line with the other hot rods waiting to race. She ran four times and her best performance was 17.8 seconds and 78 mph in the 1/4 mile. She actually beat the time of the chevy on it's last run. There's something to be said for reliability. She managed to get 16 MPG on her quarter mile runs.

When I grew up we had a Pontiac station wagon with a 400 cu in engine that turned times that were almost identical to the Prius times. We love both of our Prius.