If a drag racer is turning right or left during the course of a race, it's usually not a good situation and rarely under power.

Mopar offered the opportunity for members of their drag racing team to make these taboo turns on a race track without fear of repercussion during a special closed session of the Bob Bondurant Racing School located on the grounds of Wild Horse Motorsports Park in Phoenix, Arizona. 

Instead of wheeling their fire belching fuelers or gear-jamming Pro Stockers around the 1.5-mile race course, five drivers were treated to the experience behind the wheel of Dodge Vipers, high performance Dodge Chargers and Challengers and one of the new Dodge Hellcats. 

NHRA champions Tony Schumacher, Ron Capps, Matt Hagan, Tommy Johnson, Jr., Erica Enders and Jeggie Coughlin took part in the special program which also paired them with members of the media as passengers, 

Coughlin, who has raced for many years in both sportsman and professional situations, said he beat his fellow drivers on a holeshot when it came to one car in the school's driving fleet. 

"I had an opportunity to hop in the Hellcat, the Challenger, the Charger or the Viper and there wasn’t any way that I was getting in anything but that Hellcat.  The horsepower was amazing, and the acceleration was awesome.  I think the biggest takeaway for me was just the raw horsepower that the Hellcat had."

Schumacher has participated in driving schools before, and the best advice he can offer to anyone trying something like this is to make the instructor's job easy. 

"You’ve got two ears and one mouth and if you show up for something, even if you’re a professional race car driver, when you’re doing something different like this it pays to shut up and listen to the people that know what they’re doing," Schumacher explained. "Follow their direction to the best you can.  It was a lot of information kind of quick because we had a one hour deal instead of a classroom which is long.  We were given a lot of information, and we tend to lose it. 

"Slow down, rethink it thru and drive like the machine wants you to.  The worst thing you can do as a professional racer is going over there and think that you can be professional right away.  Learn from the people that are paid to teach."

Hagan said the experience not only taught him a bit about defensive driving on the streets around his home in Christiansburg, Va., but also provided the opportunity to blow off some steam before climbing behind the wheel of what has become a temperamental Funny Car. 

"The whole deal was really cool just to see all my teammates having fun out there and having a good time," Hagan said. "That’s what you sometimes need, just to let that pressure go, mix it up and have a good time."