"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.
One of the biggest reasons that Dodge lovers come to DodgeForum.com is to show off their truck and in our 2nd generation Dodge Dakota section, there is an impressive thread measuring over 29 pages long and over 560 posts that is chock full of beautiful shots of our members’ Dakotas. Whether you are a fan […] More »
The Dodge Viper is, was and always will be one of the most incredible production cars ever, but in the battle of pure speed – the Viper falls short of the 1,000+ horsepower (and $2 million+) Bugatti Veyron…unless Hennessey adds on their Venom 1000 Twin Turbo package to the Viper. The folks at Road & […] More »
In the world of automotive self maintenance, there are few jobs that can be performed as easily as changing your own oil – particularly in a 2nd generation Dodge Ram pickup. Unlike some vehicles that sit low enough where you have to fuss around with jacking them up and such, the Ram (in stock form) […] More »
Have you ever been sitting around talking to your buddies – or perhaps arguing on the internet with someone you don’t actually know – about how many examples of the high performance Ram SRT-10 were built? Perhaps the debate included what colors were available and how many of each were built between 2004 and 2006. […] More »
While today’s Truckin Fast feature video could have just as easily been included as the Black Fridays feature due to the massive amount of diesel soot pouring from the stacks – watching a 2nd gen Ram powered by a Cummins Turbo Diesel absolutely destroy a nitrous injected Fox Body Mustang was just too good for […] More »
Many people are too quick to run to their mechanic or dealership at the first sign of even the simplest trouble but there is a good chance that many of those people don’t realize how easy it would be to fix their problems on their own. At the same time, many drivers on the road […] More »
This past weekend, the SRT Viper GTS-R race teams took to the track of the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario for the Mobil 1 Sports Car Grand Prix and the result was the best weekend thus far for the new Viper race program. After qualifying in the 1st and 3rd spots in the […] More »