2003 Mopar Nationals - The One, The Only

With more than 40 participants, Mopar Muscle's Young Guns club returned to the Nationals as strong as ever.

After our own tech guy, Steve Dulcich, got behind the wheel of a new SRT-4, Allen gave him some help on how to stage. Hey, Steve, how were the reaction times?

The smell of burnt rubber off the racetrack pavement was irresistible to anything with wheels. To the amusement of the crowd, the cabs from Year One and Legendary Auto stepped up for a grudge match.

With 420 race cars competing in 16 drag classes, there was plenty of track action throughout the weekend. Prizes totaling $16,000 were awarded.

Caravans
The Mopar Nationals really began two days before the show, with the Mopar Muscle caravans. We jumped off from Just Suspension in Fairfield, New Jersey; the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Detroit; Year One in Braselton, Georgia; and Koller Dodge in Naperville, Illinois. One of our New Jersey caravaners lost the paint off his door and rear-quarters to a badly placed street sign, our own Steve Dulcich and Chuck James had to ditch their Fury wagon in Indiana, and rain followed the Dixieland group all the way to Columbus. So, the trips were not completely without incident. But, everyone arrived safely.

Once we finally made it to Brice Road, our caravans came together for the customary Burger King cruise night.

OE Certification
Jim Bodanis' '70 440 'Cuda (top left) and John Zettler's AAR fish were this year's winners of OE Gold certification. These guys went to unbelievable pains (and caught some lucky breaks) with their restorations.