Disc or drum

I never said or implied that the fastest way to stop was to skid the tires. Everyone knows you want to brake until just before the threshold of skidding, i.e. the old "pump the brakes" method and later ABS. But, if the brakes can skid the tires, they can also allow optimal stopping since that takes less force. That was my point, and it should be obvious to everyone.

Braking is primarily kinetic energy into heat energy. When you stop very quickly, the heat goes mostly into temperature rise in the shoes and drum (or pads and rotor), since no time to dissipate the heat. That temperature is determined by the heat capacity, which is proportional to the mass of steel. If the drum and disk setups have the same total mass, those temperatures would be the same. 9" drums are probably lighter than the factory K-H disks. I don't know about Scarebird or Wilwood. Over a longer time, how fast the brakes dissipate the heat to the air is important, so the system is ready for the next braking cycle. Disks are much better at this, especially rotors with hollow inners with "fan blades" to move the air (not all), along with ducted air blowing on them (modern high-end sports cars). A different scenario is steady braking such as on downhill grades. In that case, at steady-state, the heat generation matches heat dissipation, so disks are much better. It is stupid to rely on brakes on grades but many drivers do so and the fed's mandated front disks for that reason (too many idiots running off cliffs). I think all truckers know better.

Obviously Mopar Muscle did not optimize both systems. If they had an adjustable proportioning valve and adjusted each system until the fronts skidded just before the rears, then both drums and disks should have applied the same force to the rear wheels. The only way that wouldn't be true is if the drums suffered fade and thus less braking at the end. I can't imagine the rear drums were designed to fade during a 60 mph stop. I didn't read they did anything like that, so it wasn't a fair comparison. I doubt their car is using the factory bias-ply tires, and any time you vary from that you need to adjust the F-R balance to get optimum performance. Their article is also about promoting a rear disk system. Buy it if you want, but understand that rear disks are mostly for bling, even in current models.