Owning a SubLime colored Mopar is one of the easiest ways to make sure people stop and look at your car, even at a Mopar show. At ChallengerFest, there were a quite a few bright green pieces rolling around that were all as tough as they were made out to be. But when we noticed the custom license plate and the “Grumpy Cat Racing” sticker on the back window of Wendy Robertson’s 2007 Dodge Charger Daytona after seeing it run a mid-10 quarter-mile, we had to get the story on the car.

Wendy is a ball of energy and is a perpetually cheerful woman, not at all what who you would expect to be stepping out of an angry Dodge with a cold-air port in it’s headlight and a healthy amount of rubber slag all over the rear haunches. The Charger is only her second V8-powered car, her other foray being a 305-powered 1979 Chevrolet Camaro when she was a teenager. In fact, owning the Charger wasn’t in the cards…she had been driving Kia Optimas for a while and was satisfied (how?) but was looking to treat herself to a second car, “a fun two seater”. One weekend, she decided to go test-drive just about everything under the sun: Pontiac Solstice, Chevrolet Corvette, Honda S2000, Porsche Boxter, Mercedes SLK, and for whatever reason she didn’t pull the trigger on any of those. But as she was driving home she passed a Dodge dealership and took notice of a black Charger SRT-8 that was on display. Pulling in for a second look, she saw the brand-new SubLime Green Charger Daytona sitting on the lot and was blown away. It wasn’t the two-seater she was looking for, but after getting a taste of the power on tap, she bought it anyways.

The hook, line and sinker came when a friend suggested that she take the Daytona to the track. She was against it, mainly because she was picturing road racing, not drag racing…she honestly didn’t know what drag racing was! With a little bit of research, she warmed up to the idea of a quick blast down the dragstrip, so on her 40th birthday, she decided to throw caution to the wind and headed out to Norwalk to give it a shot. Her original plan was to make one trip down the strip…isn’t that the way it always starts? She ended up making three passes that night, ripping off a 14.4 quarter and after that was a weekend regular, narrowing her time down to a 13.6. She also began frequenting forums for more information under her pseudonym, “WitchWndy”, which inadvertently got her Charger named: “BRMSTK”. Around 2008 she linked up with a group of East Coast racers that were already in the 11-second range and working up performance mods. She met Erik Storms from BFNY Performance and Dan VanHorn, who currently is co-owner in the Modern Street Hemi Shootout series at a race in Columbus and was impressed by the speeds they were carrying. Wendy and Erik started dating and work on the Charger started to step up. In 2009 the 5.7 got a cam, ported heads and a converter. That combination lasted for a year before a 5.7-based 392 stroker went in. The car was good for 11.42 seconds in the quarter in that configuration, but in late 2010 Wendy was tipped off that a friend of hers, AJ Berge, was selling an third-gen 440 stroker motor, and the current combination was born. That’s right, those old-school 440 decals on the hood are legitimate!

The stroker is a 6.1 Hemi-based iron block that was refreshed by Modern Muscle Xtreme. Built by Storms at BFNY Performance, the Thitek-headed Hemi is pushing plenty of power through the automatic that was built by Enhanced Transmissions in Cleveland, Ohio that is sporting a ProTorque 4,000 RPM stall converter. That energy is sent to a Paramount Performance 8.8 rear end, which uses Driveshaft Shop 1400 horsepower rated axles before meeting the rubber. Other modifications include the cold-air intake and headlight ram air system from Legmaker Intakes and plenty of billet parts from Billet Technology. The car is run naturally aspirated and is believed to be cranking out somewhere around 600 horsepower at the rear wheels. In current trim, the car has a best run of 10.26@132 MPH, with a 1.375 second 60′ time. At ChallengerFest, she was trying to stick with the 10.50 index, but did break out at one point, cutting a 10.40@115 MPH while lifting.

When asked about a good story of the car, Wendy had one lined up: “Dan VanHorn, prior to MSHS, used to arrange private spring and fall track rentals at Atco for 20 racers. I went to all of them. There started to be a lot of interest in joining them but we were limited to the 20 car count. Dan then formed the Modern Street Hemi Shootout series in 2010. He worked with NMCA and partnered with them for their race at Maple Grove. Dan agreed to let the Drag Pak cars into our index race so we ended up with some experienced racers among our group of amateurs, including Johnny Lightning, Doug Duell and JC Beattie. I was running the 392 combo at this time and in the heat was running 12.5’s consistently and although it was the first time I had raced on a Pro tree I was cutting decent lights.”

“In the third round I was paired with Doug Duell. I thought for sure I was going out that round and I was extremely nervous. He dialed in at 10.0 to my 12.5. I saw the yellows and I went. I looked in my rear view mirror just as Doug’s front tires were coming down after lifting them on the launch and I could hear him coming. I had my foot smashed on the gas pedal so hard I thought I was going to put it through the floorboards. He flew past me at the traps and I was sure I lost. I ended up winning by .012 and I had the better reaction time. In the semi-finals I was paired with Johnny Lightning and again I was certain I was going to lose. I beat him. Johnny came up to me after the race and said “Not too many people that can say they put Johnny Lightning and Doug Duell on the trailer in one day!” I was to go against JC Beattie in the finals and it ended up being rained out, so we split the purse.”

With thanks to Ben Maniaci and Paul Buza at Enhanced Transmissions, Dave Weber at Modern Muscle Xtreme, and Heidi Miller at Billet Technologies…and most certainly Erik from BFNY Performance…Wendy’s broomstick is working happily where we got to see it at ChallengerFest: whipping up on the track, going all the way to the finals in the 10.50 index class and snagging the runner-up spot. Currently, there aren’t any plans to advance further…she’ll just try to get the time down as much as possible on the current setup before a decision is made to go even faster. And just think…originally she was looking at small, cute two-seaters before she got corrupted with one drive. This Daytona could have been a Boxster. Says a lot about this gearhead sickness we all enjoy, doesn’t it?