I told myself over and over after ChallengerFest 6 that come hell or high water, as long as the Project Angry Grandpa Chrysler was running, that I was going to do more than spectate at ChallengerFest 7. It might have had something to do with watching a V6-powered Chrysler 300 running in the bracket classes and watching as it cleaned house. It might have something to do with not running in a competitive race since 2005 or so…or since it had been a year since I last flat-footed the 300C in any shape or form (at the Ohio Mile). As the months crept closer I started planning out everything. I covered my racing entry fee and on Friday morning, I was in line with hundreds of other like-minded late-model Mopar fans. Jay “Speedy” Orrand had made sure that I was set up to be in the races, and John Burleson (Billet Technology’s representative for CF7 and the owner of the “Badwagon” Magnum) offered up space in the pit area he was sharing with friends Andy Wagner, Wendy Robinson, Patrick Zabst, and more for the weekend (Apologies if I forgot names…most of the weekend was a blur of cars and people!) Normally, I’m running solo at a drag race, or at the most there might be one other person with me. Not this time around…this time I was bent on racing, and had a devil nearby, wearing shades, egging me on.

I had realistic goals. I had chosen three bracket race series to try my luck in, and planned to run a 12.50 index street class just to dial in the Chrysler. The Modern Street Hemi Shootout was scheduled to go first on Friday, and I was itching to get the car into the lanes as soon as possible to take full advantage of the cool air. I helped other drivers get their cars safely off of the trailers, then turned my attention to Angry Grandpa. I initially planned to remove only the basics out of the Chrysler for weight reasons…trunk floor cover, spare tire, jack, and the twenty tons of crap that is usually in the trunk were removed. After a second or two of thought, I decided to yank out the back seat as well. I borrowed a window marker just before the driver’s meeting (which was later given to me…thanks again!) and as soon as the rules were laid out, I was in the car and waiting for my first run of the day and my first run on a Pro Tree. Just after ten in the morning on Friday, I dropped the hammer on a test-and-tune run and was promptly rewarded with a [email protected] quarter. I was impressed…the Chrysler’s last run that I could remember was a 14.8 quarter that barely broke the 90mph barrier. (The Chrysler’s previous best was 14.66@94 mph at Beech Bend two years ago.) Impressed, I hot-lapped the car back into the lanes and made a run…unfortunately, when the ticket says that my MPH is 34.9 after running out of the back in the upper part of 4th gear, I call BS on the whole run.

Unfortunately, the weather decided to step in, but not before the MSHS bracket qualifier took place, where my time had dropped to a concerning 14.44@96. With nothing changing on the car, I went to park it and let it cool for a bit, and halfway through that the rain and hail hit. We all took cover in Andy’s trailer until it was safe to pack everything up, then we headed out to the hotel and the show. While I was snapping pictures and looking over cars for ideas and details, Burleson was judging the show cars and everyone else was scattered to the winds. It was cold enough that I had on gloves and windy as all hell, but it was sunny and people were having fun in the barbecue-scented air. Some were on cooler-scooters, some were well into the spirits (ranging in strength from apple pie to JP-8 jet fuel). I had intended to leave after the show judging was done, but Grandpa was one of, if not the last car to be looked at. By that time the judges found me, I had gone to the restaurant inside the Holiday Inn and had purchased the largest hot chocolate they had, and was outside with the Chrysler running, trying to build up heat. When the judge came around, I thought that she would be bribed with an open window and a warm car. No such luck.

The next morning I arrived, a man on a mission. The density altitude at Beech Bend was sitting at -1,387 feet, the air was cold, the car was warmed up, and I had goals: I wanted either a 13-second quarter-mile time or a 100 MPH trap speed. Traction wasn’t an issue and I had driven enough that the fuel tank was now half-filled instead of topped off. The seats were ripped out again along with everything from the trunk and I was THE first one in line for the test-and-tune. My first run was a 14.1 second blast, but because the timeslip people were still setting up, that’s all I knew. I hot-lapped and ripped off a [email protected]. I let it rest for a little bit and ran a 14.13@98. I was all over the map, but was in happy territory. Getting what I wanted seemed plausible, after all! Another hot lap produced a [email protected], so I parked for an hour. The next run was the eye-opener: [email protected]! Right on the freaking edge! But I faced a problem: I now knew where I should dial in the 300 for bracket racing, but I wanted the 13-second mark, too! Everyone at the trailer was in favor of making the number, with Burleson leading the charge…and I compromised: I would run with the seat in for the A2S bracket, and depending on what happened would determine when I would tear the seat out.

During all of this, there was plenty that I had been paying attention to: A Jeep Grand Cherokee, known as “The Brick”, was laying down mid-8 second timeslips while punching holes in the air. A brand-new Drag Pak Challenger, with it’s 354ci supercharged engine, was being unloaded. (Far as I know, it didn’t make a pass.) Run after run, western Kentucky echoed to the sound of modern Hemis as they roared down the track. But I was in my own little world, right up until the deadly serious orange Challenger of John Lewis rolled back into the pits with one tire wrinkle-walling and a quiet little hiss coming from the same slick. During a burnout he had managed to tear a hole open, and was being called up to the lanes for a pass. If you wanted to see a team come together, it happened at that moment. A set of drag radials were offered up off of a brutally fast six-speed car. Two jacks appeared out of thin air. An impact wrench and a torque wrench appeared simultaneously and before anyone knew it, the orange Challenger was hustling to the starting line, another car was on jackstands with it’s rear end hanging in the breeze and the two take-offs were stacked neatly next to a trailer, with a paint daub where the hole was.

Photo: “jettech104” via ModernMoparForums

The first bracket race was the A2Speed/B&G Performance bracket race, part of the ChallengerFest side of events, and I was ready to go. I dialed in at 14.22 to give myself some room, and on the first trip out I lined up against a 6.1 Challenger. I cut a .047 reaction time, but broke out with a [email protected]. Whoops! But the Challenger red-lit by -.051, saving my bacon for round two…which put the 300C up against a Hellcat Challenger. Believing that I was speeding up again, I decided to feather the throttle after the 1,000 ft mark and see what happened, but either the big bad Cat broke or blew the tires away. Either way, I fluttered just in case and netted a [email protected] for the win light. Round three paired me off with a Challenger SRT392, and I was had from start to finish. There may have been a glimmer of hope had I stayed in the throttle, but the resulting [email protected] just wasn’t doing it. One race down, three more to go.

Annoyed at the loss, I decided to say “screw it” and broke out the tools again. I know the picture sucks, but you can see clearly that the heavy-ass front seat is now gone from the car as well. With the passenger seatbelt tied to one of the LATCH brackets in the backseat area, I dialed in 13.90 and waited for the start of the HRH Performance/OSTDyno bracket, the second ChallengerFest bracket race I was running. With a half-hour cool down, I was hoping and praying that I’d nail the 13-sec/100MPH goal, but the first run netted me a [email protected] slip. The trap speed looked promising, but the cooler temperatures and awesome air density levels were disappearing quickly. Since I was still in the bracket race, I decided that the only way I was going to stay in it was to cut killer reaction times and pray that the other guy did something stupid as a result. Smart thinking, this…because my second HRH run saw me red-light to the tune of -.024. I’m pretty sure that people at the far end of the track in the spectator areas heard me screaming inside the car. At least the [email protected] backed up suspicion that I was getting very close to success.

As I was waging war with the gold brick, the others were making their runs. Burleson’s Magnum was constantly fighting heat issues (the Kenne Bell supercharger makes enough heat on a run to roast a medium-sized cow) and had to be cooled and re-iced before going back out. Zabst’s SubLime Green Charger was too good for it’s own good, and kept threatening to break out at any moment. It almost became routine: slower cars would run, then come back to the trailer, where we’d prep the heavy-hitters for their run.

The last two series were pretty much washes. I wound up next to Zabst in my last bracket run, and botched the tree, cutting a .409 on the Pro Tree. For the 12.50 street class, I qualified 10th with a [email protected], then promptly got spanked in the next round by a 12.9 car. My racing was done. But the others were still out there, so in-between bolting the seats back in, re-hydrating, and taking some preliminary notes, I was helping everyone else out, be it trying to figure out a feather point for a bracket run, stuffing ice into the intercooler, whatever. Burleson made it to the semi-finals in the 10.5 index class, where his supercharger belt called it a day and his power steering pulley turned to dust on the starting line. After a quick assessment of the damage (which included a chunk out of his fiberglass hood), Burleson was done and ready for a drink. Wendy went into the finals, but at the launch her 440 stroker Charger got sideways and she had to pedal out of it.

By the time it was all said and done, I was exhausted. I managed to make it to the hotel for the awards banquet, but decided to leave before the auction started. I got home and collapsed…just straight freaking collapsed. I had been on my feet, running like a madman, all day long. My back was killing me, my neck was killing me, my hand was throbbing from smashing it between the spare tire and the battery, and my legs hurt after running the eighth-mile up to the starting line to find out why the Badwagon was being pushed off of the starting line. And there is nothing that would stop me from doing it all over again. Good people working together on race day…what’s not to love?