The 2024 Woodward Dream Cruise will be held on August 17th and while Dodge will not have their own display, the brand will share a space with the Modern Street HEMI® Shootout along the route in Bloomfield Township. The MSHS still has parking spots available for purchase, so if you have a Dodge or any Mopar® product, you can display your vehicle at the Woodward Dream Cruise with Dodge and the MSHS.
For many years, Dodge/Mopar had one of the most popular displays at the Woodward Dream Cruise, covering a huge parking lot at the corner of Woodward Avenue and 13 Mile Road. Unfortunately, that large parking lot was replaced with a building, leaving Dodge and Mopar without their familiar location. Around the same time, Dodge began powering the Roadkill Nights event the week before the Dream Cruise, thus using up the budget for a display space on an entire event dedicated specifically to the Dodge brand. Roadkill Nights is awesome, but that left Mopar fans without a place to focus their attention during the Woodward Dream Cruise.
Fortunately, Dan VanHorn and his crew from the Modern Street HEMI Shootout stepped up when Dodge didn’t have a display and, with the help of many of the series’ racers, the MSHS lot became the place to be for Mopar lovers at the Woodward Dream Cruise. At first, it was just the MSHS crowd, but for the past few years, Dodge has teamed up with the MSHS to create an incredible area for Mopar fans to check out some of the quickest modern HEMI-powered vehicles in the world alongside the latest and greatest models from the Dodge brand. Best of all, the parking spots are not just sold to racers, so anyone who buys a ticket to park with the MSHS can display their Mopar in the same area as the Dodge display.
Right now, we don’t know for sure what Dodge will be bringing to the MSHS lot during the Woodward Dream Cruise, but in past years, the brand has brought out their Demon drag racing simulators and a variety of new models. In 2023, Jay Leno took delivery of his Demon 170 from Tim Kuniskis at the Vinsetta Garage restaurant, then they cruised to the MSHS lot in Bloomfield Township, where they signed autographs and posed for photographs. That will be a hard act to follow in 2024, but between the Dodge display and the vehicles from the Modern Street HEMI Shootout, there is no question that this is the best place for Mopar fans to visit during the Woodward Dream Cruise – whether they have a vehicle to display or not. If you do have a Mopar to display, the ticket to park with the MSHS costs $60 and that includes a barbecue meal that is worth the cost of admission by itself (extra meal tickets are $25). With that registration cost, you are automatically entered into the car show being held in that lot, with 30 awards handed out among the various classes. The MSHS will also be joined by legendary drive-and-drag racer Tom Bailey, owner of the world’s quickest Dodge Durango, and in addition to having information on his publication Sick the Magazine, his Sick Pizza trailers will be on hand serving up slices.
In addition to hosting the coolest stop on the Woodward Dream Cruise route, VanHorn and the Modern Street HEMI Shootout crowd have a racing event the day before the big cruise. On August 16th, the MSHS will host their annual HEMI’sanity at Milan Dragway. This event will include many of the quickest modern HEMI-powered vehicles in the world, with index classes for 8.50, 9.00, 10.00, 10.50, 11.50 and 12.50 ETs, along with the bracket class, the rookie class, a class just for Ram trucks, a class just for Challenger Drag Paks and a class just for vehicles with a manual transmission. No matter what your HEMI-powered vehicle runs, the MSHS has a class for you and with the price of racer registration, you can enter two classes (most racers enter an index class and the bracket class).
Racer registration costs $125 but for $180, you can race on Friday and hang out with Dodge at the MSHS Woodward lot on Saturday. It should be noted that the parking lot will also be open to people with MSHS passes on Friday, so after racing at Milan, you can take in the Woodward cruising action Friday night as well.
Right now, the MSHS still has tickets available for parking, but they are selling quickly and they do sell out every year, so if you want to make sure to get a spot with Dodge along the cruise route, click here to secure your tickets.
All images shown in this editorial story were provided by participants of the Modern Street HEMI Shootout Woodward area from past years.
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