Another serving of high-horsepower hijinks is about to take place and it’s been simmering for some time. With a dash of high-octane unleaded gas and sticky soft compound drag tires, the aroma of burnt rubber and spent exhaust gasses will hover around the infamous Woodward Avenue during this weekend’s seventh Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge. Just to amp things a bit and change the racing venue up so it’s not just “wash-rinse-repeat”, the Dodge//SRT^® folks have thrown the gauntlet down with their new Direct Connection Grudge Match. Like last year’s Roadkill Night’s celebrity shootout, in which some lucky contestants received a Dodge Challenger or Charger SRT Hellcat to modify, this time these gear-jamming gearheads received a 6.2L supercharged Redeye HEMI^® V8 crate engine that in its stock form makes a healthy 807 horsepower and 717 lb.-ft. of torque. There’s no such thing as too much power and the lucky contestants doing battle in the Dodge Direct Connection Grudge Match will be bolting on even more go-fast goodies and pushing that needle closer to 900 or even 1,000 horsepower, but the teams are allowed to modify the engine using Direct Connection parts and components from aftermarket suppliers. This means that they will all have access to the Redeye Stage 2 kit, yielding 885 horsepower. But wait, there’s more! Just to make it more interesting, the grudge match racers must row their own gears as this year’s rules mandate the use of a six-speed manual transmission.

One of the lucky few that was chosen for the Dodge Direct Connection Grudge Match is Tony Arme. This 37-year-old Phoenix native owns American Legends, a hot rod shop that transforms already cool classic cars into over-the-top street machines with modern drivelines. “I always worked on our cars with my dad growing up and we built my first car together, 1968 Mustang, and was instantly captivated; and from that point I decided to make a career out of it,” said Tony. “I did some schooling for automotive repair and immediately got a job at a hot rod shop. Once I found out you could build old cars for a living, I was hooked and eventually started my own business. However, I had worked at a few shops before and just always wanted more until I came to a point where I had to make the decision and jumped in head first. We were very fortunate to have some amazing customers and employees that have been with us from the start, and we’ve built some very cool Mopars_®.”

When the call went out for potential participants to enter the Dodge Direct Connection Grudge Match, Tony dove in despite never building a drag-purpose vehicle before. “We like to prove our shop is capable of anything. We’ve done Hellcat swaps into a 1971 Challenger R/T and a 1959 Chrysler 300. However, we had not built a drag car before, and I don’t have a ton of experience in it either,” noted Tony. “With a lot of research and a little help from some very talented people, I think we are going to put up a good fight. When we were told we had to use a Redeye engine as well, we knew the potential due to building a few Hellcat HEMI-swapped vehicles and felt very comfortable knowing how it’s done. We did a little sandbagging out of the gate. The 1971 Challenger R/T we teased out as our grudge match entry is actually going to a good customer of ours. This classic Challenger was the perfect car to keep us off the radar initially. The ride we’re bringing up to Roadkill Nights is all business. It’s a 1969 Plymouth Barracuda and is a big tire drag car that is certified to 8.50s. We plan on taking it to that limit in the future.”

Despite Tony’s experience with dropping SRT Hellcat monsters into vintage Mopar iron, he knows it’ll be a major challenge getting all that power to stick to the finicky surface of Woodward Avenue. “I think everyone knows traction will be critical so we wanted to build something that would handle that and be able to adjust to whatever the road conditions provide,” commented Tony. “We didn’t want something that would just compete; we wanted to build something that had the potential to win. I think we have advantages over the other competitors. Tires for sure, straight axle with a four-link, and overall better weight distribution. I can tell you towards the end of the build, there was a rule change that we had to run the six-speed manual trans. Originally, we received approval to use a different transmission option. But, when we were just about to fire the car up for the first time, the hammer came down and we had to change to the six-speed manual. Again, our shop is familiar with these challenges, but the dyno schedule forced us to do it in 24 hours. It was grueling, but it went smoother than we anticipated. Regardless, it’ll be an interesting experience racing with a manual trans on the street and we’re just going to let the car do its job as we know the competition will be tough.”

Speaking of competition, last year’s winner, Alex Taylor, is ready to hit Roadkill Nights and reclaim her title as the shutdown queen of Woodward. This time, it’ll be in the driver’s seat of her Redeye HEMI engine-powered 1955 Plymouth Savoy. “Alex Taylor, of course, is our biggest competition. When you are competing against not only a talented race shop that knows what they are doing with Dennis in the mix and then have MotorTrend backing the project as well, that makes for a challenge,” smiled Tony. “We have had a chance to do quite a bit of testing that I don’t really think the other competitors have, so hopefully our experience and planning during the build to have the time to test will pay off.”

There’ll be nine competitors making the call for the 2022 Dodge Direct Connection Grudge Match. You’ll be able to see these guys and gals dumping the clutch and grabbing gears right on the iconic Woodward Avenue right in front of the M1 Concourse. Be there this Saturday, August 13, and get ready for drama and sensory overload when everything’s on the line. In the meantime, check out Tony’s handywork on his Instagram channel, Corruptt Builds.