ChallengerFest 4
The fourth annual ChallengerFest event was held in Bowling Green, KY again this year. The host hotel was moved to the Holiday Inn as we had out grown the capacity of the Hilton. Participants started showing up as early as Tuesday afternoon for the event which officially started on Friday. By Thursday night there were 61 Challengers in the hotel parking lot. In all we ended up with 160 cars in the car show and 115 cars racing on the track.
The weather was perfect being in the mid 70s and crystal blue skies. The car show had 160 cars participating in Stock, Custom, and Modified classes with a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in each. Billet Technology sponsored the car show along with Thunder Designs graphics for People's Choice. Bob Frederick attended and personally chose Best of Show which went to a bright yellow twin turbo Challenger. Furthest driven went to Chris Garcia from New Mexico with 1,224 miles, and furthest trailored went to Rob Goss from Wyoming with 1,540 miles. We also had several event attendees all the way from Canada.
The good weather made for some great racing at the track as it was comfortable for both drivers and spectators under the covered bleachers at Beech Bend Raceway. The track was hooking pretty good as well thanks to a special track prep fund sponsored by Modern Mopar Forum members, Boatman, Lakersfan, Ironchallenger with Accuburners Corp, and Notsure. There were several 10 second Challengers making passes on the track, an 8 second Jeep from Paramount Performance, and a couple of nine second Challengers owned by John Lewis and John Glass. While ChallengerFest is geared toward the beginner or person who hasn't been on a race track in several years, the spectators enjoyed seeing some of the unlimited cars make these phenomenal passes down the quarter mile.
There were four racing classes this year. The PWR Bracket Race, the Mcleod Racing and Baxter Auto Group 6 Speed Shootout, the ChallengerFest LLC Unlimited Shootout, and then the big one, the Magnuson/Arrington Performance Supercharger Shootout. Scott Ladely came in 1st in the bracket race follwed by Donalda Eveleigh in 2nd, and Phil Williams in 3rd. These race winners received PWR Certificates for $750, $500, and $250 respectively. Mani Sehmbi came in 1st in the 6 speed shoot out followed by Craig Belevender in 2nd, and John Eveleigh in 3rd. These race winners received a McLeod RST Clutch, $400 cash from Baxter plus a $250 McLeod certificate, and a Hurst Shifter upgrade from G&K Performance plus a $250 McLeod certificate respectively. John Glass won 1st place in the unlimited shootout with the Paramount Performance Jeep piloted by Al Gennarelli coming in a close second. John Lewis rounded out the unlimited winners in 3rd. The prizes for unlimited were $500 plus a Hop Not auto kit, $250 plus a Hop Not auto kit plus a $200 Diablo certificate, and $125 cash plus a $100 Diablo certificate respectively. Although John Glass donated his winnings back to the official event charity in a generous gesture. All three were 9 second passes during the competition. Bob Keys came in 1st place in the Supercharger shootout and won a Magnuson Supercharger installed and tuned by Arrington Performance. Robert Butler got a surprise when he learned his 2nd place finish in the Supercharger Shootout won the mystery prize of a heads and cam package from High Horse Performance. The Fastest Female Racer has become a popular class at the ChallengerFest events and is sposnored by SpeedLogix. Lisa Nicholson came in 1st, Debbie Wallace 2nd, and Marion Koleski 3rd. They received SpeedLogix certifcates for $200, $100, and $50 respectively. The best 60' of the day was Stan Richards with a 1.4x sponsored by Summit Racing with a $100 gift card and the best reaction time of the day went to Chuck Nicholson with a .004 and was sponsored by Solo Performance with a stainless cat back or high flow cats, winners choice. Chuck, however, donated his prize back to the event to be auctioned off for the event charity.
Agent Automotive, Gary Mathews CDJR, GForce1320, Modern Mopar Magazine, Muscle Car Apparel, Oemy's Ultra Power Performance, OST Dyno, and USW Wheels also sponsored ChallengerFest 4 with several of these vendors being on site with booths. Easy Street Kustoms was also on site again this year with their portable Dynojet Dyno for participants to use to check power and or get tunes from Mike at OST Dyno who was on site tuning cars to get every possible horse power out of them.
Our official event charity for ChallengerFest 4 was www.racing4vets.org. We did some research and this charity will actually go in to debt to make sure the wounded soldiers they intend to assist get what they need. They do not take any admin fees and nearly 100% if not 100% of all donations go straight to the wounded vets. They sent Alex down to hang out with us at our event and he had a fantastic time and was overwhelmed by the generosity of the event participants. One very generous attendee donated a #300 of 300 special edition Colt 1911 45 to be raffled off which took in $3400 on it's own. Thanks to Mr. Johnnie Spaulding for the generosity of donating that to the cause. In all the event took in $10,170.00 for www.racing4vets.org. ChallengerFest attendees are some of the most generous I've ever seen.
Well, that's enough of me blathering on. Here are a few images my better half captured at the event. I will update this page with some video as well, so check back soon.
