A haze still hangs over Pontiac, Michigan, two days after Roadkill Nights 2022 shut down for the night. If you listen close, you can still hear tires squealing. Actually, that may actually be happening right now, but just from normal Detroit drivers.
Roadkill Nights 2022 promised to bring the show and boy did it deliver. There was something for everyone, regardless of how much of a car enthusiast you are or which brand wins your loyalty.
Tom Bailey from Sick The Mag warmed up a large portion of Roadkill-goers Friday night with his burnout contest held in the center of the M1 Concourse. If watching people do burnouts until their tires explode doesn’t make you smile … you probably should stop coming here to this website, just sayin’!
It was a long day with almost too much to do in one day. The weather was about as perfect as you could ask for to be outside for 12 hours and even better for making horsepower! Any new Dodge or Ram Brand vehicles that you had ever hoped to see were set up throughout the M1 Concourse for all to drool over. There was food, drinks, ice cream, Dodge official merchandise, booths, displays and merchandise from many other vendors offering killer products. My favorite section of the event was probably the Direct Connection Alley that featured the SRT® Demon drag racing simulators, as well as all the drool-worthy crate motors and race parts that everybody wants (including me; lucky I didn’t roll one off with me!).
The tires screamed all day and night from the skid pad and SRT Thrill Rides. For some people, it is their only chance to experience the performance of an SRT Hellcat or Redeye in a safe and controlled fashion, driven by a professional.
New for this year was the Ram TRX off-road course which featured several jumps that would launch the high-performance SRT Hellcat-powered truck high enough in the air to make passengers stain their pants.
Hundreds upon hundreds of owners parked their cars around the outer loop of the race track as part of the car-show portion of the event. You could find anything from classic cars to brand-new cars straight off the dealer lot, and everything in between.
Of course, the main event for Roadkill Nights is the drag racing competition down Woodward Avenue. For the second year in a row, MotorTrend and Dodge picked a group of social media influencers, sent them Redeye crate motors and a six-speed manual transmission from Direct Connection with a stack of cash to build a racecar in four weeks to come compete in the ultimate grudge race. The builds and the racing did not disappoint and the spectators definitely enjoyed seeing this group of people battle it out on the street in front of everybody. No excuses, no stories, no lies, no hiding. But I think the burnt friction material from the clutches sacrificed this weekend will take a while to clear out of my nasal passages.
If you missed this year’s Roadkill Nights, half of me feels bad for you, and half of me wonders what is wrong with you? If you haven’t been yet, I highly suggest you get off your couch and make it happen.
Here are some black-and-white photos from this weekend, which seemed fitting to the vibe of the event, paying respect to the original days of muscle cars, Detroit, street-racing and Woodward.
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