(Lead photo: Wes Edens) It’s not that I really need an excuse to bring out Project Angry Grandpa to race. Far from it…I’ve been enjoying romping on our dual-personality 2006 Chrysler 300C for the last few months. BFNY Performance has managed to tread the fine line between a monster and a mouse with our gold brick, and it’s done well for itself. With over 10,000 miles on the clock since the build was completed late last year, the only upkeep we needed to perform was to finally change out the struts and shocks…we’re pretty sure that they should’ve been changed out nearly 40,000 miles ago, but after a front strut started making some truly horrendous noises, we finally bit the bullet and now we’re rolling much more solidly.

But there was a really big reason that I was looking forward to Speedy’s ode to all things modern Mopar: I’ve had a set of mounted Mickey Thompson drag radials sitting in the back of my garage, patiently waiting for their chance to prove themselves on the back of our car. To bring you back up to speed, Grandpa’s best run was a [email protected], run at ATCO Dragway in New Jersey in November. We weren’t going to be near that number…ATCO’s density altitude that day was nothing short of miraculous, and the weather around Beech Bend was warmer, humid and unstable. With no adjustments made other than the drag radials and the improved shocks and struts, we were ready to see slightly slower elapsed times. So long as AG was consistent and we could detect some kind of improvement with the radials, we’d be happy. And yes, they do look a bit dinky compared to the stock 18″ wheels.

Due to Mother Nature being a royal pain for ChallengerFest 8, the entire racing program had to be tightly compressed into one day…which meant that the Chrysler saw the track four times total. To sum up the day:

Best R/T: .126 on a shallow stage

Best 60′: 1.96

Average 330′: 5.65 seconds

1/8th mile average: 8.68 @ 82 MPH

Best 1/4 of the day: [email protected]

Here’s what I’m gleaming from the information: The combination is holding up well and is consistent…there is less than a tenth difference between all four runs, and only .5 MPH difference. Grandpa is a bracket bomber, if not blisteringly fast. And that is with the heavy-ass front seat in place, too. What about the drag radials, though? About that…they were junk. Not that Mickey Thompson units are bad, do not get us wrong…it’s just that the ones I had on my car were well beyond wasted. At best, I’d slip just a touch before the car dug in. At worst, I lost half of first gear spinning on a throwaway run. I do have a second set of drag radials, a set of Nittos, that are fresh that I can throw onto the runner rims, and hopefully I’ll see some improvement there. And we are still planning to put the correct converter into the car, upping the stall speed by about 1,000 RPM, but that will happen once we can schedule time to get the car back up to BFNY’s shop in Cleveland.

Until then, we will leave well enough alone. Grandpa’s next race is coming up in a couple of weeks, and we are going to stick with the street tires on the car this time. But just like every other race, the Chrysler will be driven to the track, down the track, and driven home, the way we’ve always done business.

(And maybe, just maybe, we will look at 18″ runners for drag radials in the future. It looks like the car skipped out on leg day.)