Yeah the Challenger is basically the Call of Duty of the sports car industry: build quality is rubbish, performance is rubbish, optimization is nonexistent and each new version is basically the same as the last one but males between the ages of 16 and 24 buy them anyway because it gets their testosterone levels up. Occasionally they also release a limited edition that comes in an extra thicc package, costs three times as much and drops in value faster than an old-gen game console.
Regarding the tuning, you should try to max out your top speed before anything else. The acceleration on drag cars is already good enough to reach top speed halfway through the race for most cars, even without perks that affect it.
Well, actually you should max out your nitrous power before anything else, but that's true for every class not just drag. Wouldn't be a Need For Speed game if the cars didn't run on nitrous.