Roadkill Nights 2021: A Smashing Success for Dodge & Mopar Pride
Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge drew 110 race cars, 300 show cars and more than 38,000 spectators.
This past Saturday, Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge returned to the M1 Concourse road racing facility in Metro Detroit. After taking 2020 off due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the popular event returned in 2021 for its sixth installation. As was the case in past years, Roadkill Nights proved to be the ultimate automotive festival, featuring a car show, thrill rides, the Demon drag racing simulator and, of course, legal street racing action on Detroit’s Woodward Avenue.
Best of all, for the first time in several attempts, there was no rain, making 2021 one of the best of the past few Roadkill events. The event ran smoothly from start to finish, making it a great time for everyone involved and for those who couldn’t attend, here is a rundown of the results.
Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge
If you have never been to a Roadkill Nights event, there are a few main attractions. First and foremost, there is a legal street racing program held on Woodward Avenue. The organizers put up barriers, the road is closed and there are other extensive safety measures in place, but it is actual racing on the street that runs in front of the M1 Concourse road racing facility. We will get to the racing results later on in this piece.
Next, inside of the M1 Concourse, there is a thriving automotive festival, with hundreds of “Show N Shine” cars lining a portion of the road course. This year, there were 300 show cars on display and while the collection of vehicles is Dodge-heavy, it is not Dodge-specific.
There are lots of other makes and models, from antique hot rods to modern, modified off-road trucks. That being said, if you are a fan of the modern Dodge Challenger, Charger or Viper, you are guaranteed to love the Show N Shine display.
The section of the road course not used for the show cars is used for the Dodge Thrill Rides, which are also held in the central skid pad area of the facility. The Dodge Thrill Rides provide spectators a change to ride in Hellcat cars with professional drivers who drift around the track or the skid pad. Few people will have a chance to ride in a Hellcat Challenger or Charger as it roasts its tires around the track and that is why both Dodge Thrill Ride areas are always among the most popular parts of Roadkill Nights.
Along somewhat similar lines, there is also the Dodge Demon Drag Racing Simulator, which gives spectators the chance to climb into the driver’s seat of 2018 Demon and make a virtual pass down the quarter mile. The cars, while stationary, actually lift the front wheels on a hard, virtual launch, making it another popular aspect of the event. During the 2021 Roadkill Nights event, more than 4,000 people participated in either the Dodge Thrill Rides or the Demon simulator.
Finally, Roadkill Nights has a ton of food trucks, performance manufacturer displays and booths selling both Roadkill and Dodge apparel. In total, more than 38,000 people attended the 2021 Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge event at the M1 Concourse and with clear skies and relatively cool temperatures, it really was a great event.
Racing Results
The key aspect of the Roadkill Nights festival since it started back in 2015 is the drag racing program. In that first year, the racing took place in the parking lot of the old Pontiac Silverdome. Since moving to the M1 Concourse, the racing program has taken place on Woodward Avenue, with both racers and spectators loving the legal street racing action. For 2021, the track was shifted about 500 feet southward down Woodward Ave, leading to a slightly smoother starting line for the eighth-mile racing surface.
A total of 110 vehicles were approved to race, with everyone being grouped into either Small Tire (275 or smaller) or Big Tire (bigger than 275 or AWD). For most racers, the program is purely for the fun of the sport, but the quickest 8 cars from each group are chosen to participate in a shootout for $10,000. Also, the quickest Dodge car in each class wins $5,000.
For three of the four prizes, 2021 marked back-to-back winners. The Quick 8 Big Tire class was won by Jimmer Kline and his 1966 Chevy for the second year in a row. The quickest Big Tire Dodge was James Pranis’ 1968 Charger and the quickest Small Tire Dodge was Peter Bokedon’s 1972 Dart, both of which also took home the same awards back in 2019. The only new winner was Nick Taylor, who drove his 2000 Ford Mustang to the win in the Small Tire Quick 8 in an insanely close, photo finish win (below).
Hellcat Grudge Match
Finally, each year Roadkill Nights has some sort of special racing program with some variety of celebrities racing in Dodge products. For 2021, Dodge gave a Hellcat Redeye to four YouTubers and a television personality, along with $10,000 to modify them. The only rules were that they had to keep the original engine block and they had to keep the original IHI supercharger, but they could do whatever else they wanted.
At the press conference on the day before Roadkill Nights, we got to see the cars up close and the drivers talked about the details, but they were all looking to keep their cards close to their chest. The teams only provided basic details of the build, so we don’t actually know what was done to the cars.
What we do know is that Alex Taylor and her dad basically turned their Dodge Challenger into a promod car. They replaced the 8-speed ZF transmission with a TH400, allowing them to move the engine back four inches. They also back-halved the car, allowing them to run unique suspension, a Ford 9-inch differential and massive 22-inch wide tires.
The huge tires were practically rubbing against the fuel cell, but it didn’t need to pass tech inspection for Roadkill. It only needed to beat the other three YouTube cars and it did just that.
The only real competitor was the twin turbocharged Charger of Westen Champlin (above in fighter jet livery), built by Hellcat tuning expert Tim Barth. Champlin had the power, but not the traction to beat Taylor, so she took her promod Challenger to the final shootout with Eric Malone from “Fastest Cars in the Dirty South”.
Malone was piloting a Charger (above in blue) that had weight reduction, pulleys and nitrous, and during his test hits, his car did not seem to get off of the line as well as Taylor’s. In the final, Malone jumped so early that Taylor won without going down the track, but the two made a fun run afterwards and remarkably, Malone’s Charger beat the heavily modified Challenger.
With 2021 being such a successful event, it seems likely that Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge will be back for 2022 as well. If you haven’t attended in the past, this is definitely a bucket list item for anyone who loves American muscle cars and drag racing.
Photos: Patrick Rall
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