Indeed. You get both the 60" time and the reaction time on your time slip when you race. You get other stuff, but those two are what you should probably care about as a driver. The ET and MPH will follow (within the limits of the car) if you do those well.
But even that time is a little bit of an out-lier. It was stock, on street tires, but I was the quickest stock Cooper S for awhile. Eventually guys with DOT slicks figured out how to launch them (launching FWD cars is an art), and my times weren’t too impressive anymore. Mercifully, most of those cars will never see that time.
I’m super-duper OK at launching a car. I can get my WRX to get close to the 60" time of the Tesla if I’m willing to launch pretty hard and place the fate of my transmission in the skill of my feet. But that’s because I can cheat with an ICE, and build up energy with the mass of the engine before the yellow light turns on. After that, the Tesla will use its completely fucking flat torque and horsepower advantage to walk away from me, no matter how heavy that electric bastard is.
In the limited world of a drag race, that is. A Tesla is a poor street demon due to fact that it still takes awhile to charge up after you’ve spent a few seconds going absolutely nuts. It’s fucking impressive at a drag strip, but it would be a piss poor endurance racer. This might seem like a diversion, but it speaks directly to my critique of the original post. Which car is best car? It would always depend on your goals.
I wanted a fast-ish car that could haul my bass amp to/from shows. The Mini was pretty great at that, stylish, and dayum, it stopped well. It was merely OK in inclement weather, snow could keep it from entering my driveway, ice kicked its ass. The WRX has far more speed than the Cooper had, can haul more, and can get up my driveway with the snow we receive in north Texas. Ice is still an experience on all-season tires, but you won’t spin them easily.
I then got a new job with more pay at a longer distance. I could afford to buy another car without thinking about trading in the WRX. I bought a Fit, because it gets 10MPG better at any given speed on cheaper fuel, it can still haul all of my shit, and it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than it is to drive a fast car slow. It’s pretty light, so it stops well. It could turn much better than it does, but better tires and a different alignment will probably fix most of that. It will get them soon. If the weather is really bad and I can’t work from home for some reason, I can take the WRX. If I want to visit the drag strip, I can take either, really. I know what a good reaction time is in any car, and I know a good 60" for either car.
If you view “car” as a merely a box that moves things, and you use it for nothing but, the above paragraphs may be almost meaningless to you. To be honest, you might be better off with a AV. But you’d still be better off with an AV that could stop like a sports car, even if you don’t personally know the difference.