"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.
"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.
"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.
"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.
"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.
The 2015 Dodge Charger R/T was introduced last week at the 2014 New York International Auto Show with some mixed reviews from Mopar lovers around the country. Some people love the cutting edge, new look that maintains the basic lines of the current car while others insist that this new Charger front end looks way […] More »
The Dodge brand has learned a whole lot in the last 100 years – having first debuted back in 1914 – and to talk about some of the things that the brand has learned, the company has turned to very old people to share what they have learned in their many years. The company gathered […] More »
If you are not familiar with the Dodge A100 pickup truck, you are missing out. Offered as both trucks and vans from 1964 through 1970, the A100 featured a funky cab over engine design that made it the favorite choice for classic wheelstanders like Bill Maverick Golden’s Lil Red Wagon. Over the past few years, […] More »
A great many of the Cummins Turbo Diesel powered Dodge Ram pickups that we feature in our Black Friday arent really doing much other than showing off how much soot they can spew under hard throttle. Sure, some of them are drag racing and some of them are on the dyno, but a great many […] More »
In the world of Tech Thread Spotlight topics, it doesn’t get much better than the 4g Ram 2500 build thread that we are featuring today. While most pickup build threads would fall into our “Cool Thread” segment rather than the Tech Thread Spotlight, this build thread is like few others in the simple fact that […] More »
We knew that the 2015 Dodge Challenger was coming to the 2014 New York International Auto Show and we thought that it would have a new look that would allow it to stand out from the current models. We were wrong on that point as the 2015 Challenger only receives subtle styling changes on an […] More »
The 2015 Dodge Charger R/T was introduced today under the bright lights of the 2014 New York International Auto Show with a fully revamped exterior that has some Dodge lovers crying tears of joy while others mourn the aggressive look that we know and love on the 2014 Charger R/T. While the 2015 Charger R/T […] More »