Roadkill Winning 1968 Dart – 35 Years of Family Racing Tradition
2 years ago Owners + Clubs
Lenny Melton was 12 years old in 1988 when his dad handed him the keys to his first car – a 1968 Dodge Dart. It didn’t have an engine, transmission or rear differential, and it needed new quarter panels, but all in all, it was a solid first car for Melton. Even though he was a few years away from being able to drive legally, he was a budding gearhead, excited to get to work on his first muscle car. His dad was also a car guy who had a handful of hot muscle cars over the years, including a 1970 Charger R/T, so while he was not into drag racing, he understood his young son’s early interest in going fast – doing what was needed to make sure that the 1968 Dart was ready to be driven when Lenny turned 16.
Around the time that he was 14 years old, Lenny Melton began working for a local speed shop, where he literally worked for parts. Over time, he built a nice 360, but when he ran into issues with the camshaft, he abandoned his plans for that engine and turned his attention to another enigne. That other engine was the 440-cubic-inch big block in a Satellite that his dad had, but was not driving. Lenny managed to talk his dad out of that big block, skipping school one day to drive to Herb McCandless’ shop to buy parts for his build, including $800 Chrysler Power (now TTI) headers and an engine plate. Once all of the parts were in hand, Melton and his dad installed the engine and when he hit the road at 16, he had himself a big block 1968 Dodge Dart. He actually drove this car daily with the big block, until he bought a beater that allowed him to only drive the Dart on nice days. It was around this time when Lenny Melton’s 1968 Dart began its transformation from a nicer street cruiser to one of the quickest Dodge street cars in the world.
One weekend, while hanging out at his local drag strip, Lenny Melton met Bob Reed, who was there racing his NHRA record-holding 1968 HEMI® engine-powered SS/A Barracuda. The two quickly became good friends and when Melton was 19, Reed helped him install a roll cage and some other items that allowed him to go King of the Street (KOS) racing in the mid-to-late 1990s. With the cast-crank 440, what Melton describes as “decent heads” and nitrous oxide, his Dart ran 9.80s on a DOT-approved tire with a track weight around 3,400 pounds. However, he regularly found fellow KOS racer Andy Mayes running just a bit quicker, so Melton replaced that early 440 with a low deck 451 with cast iron Indy cylinder heads. The class required cast heads, a 4150 single carb, flat tappet cam and one-stage plate nitrous kits; and with the 451, this Dart ran consistently in the low-9-second range, leading to some great races and some big wins in the KOS ranks. When running that setup, he was working on getting into the 8s, but never did so before the rules changed for the following year. The new rules allowed for a roller cam, aluminum cylinder heads and a 4500 carb, so Melton made those changes and got down into the 8.60s with the same short block, aluminum Indy heads and a “giant cam” with the nitrous plate kit and a track weight around 3,450 pounds.
A short time later, Melton got bit by the “HEMI Super Stock bug” and built a class-legal HEMI engine that ran steady 8.90s in the Dart while also building a race-ready Dodge Dakota. However, he parked both vehicles for around a decade as he and his wife were raising their young children.
Around the time that Melton’s oldest son, Austin, was 14, he and his 11-year-old brother, Brandon, were becoming enthralled with drag racing. They wanted their dad to get the Dakota back out to the track and he said that he would, but they would need to do help get the truck ready to race, as he wouldn’t do it on his own. Both boys jumped at the chance to turn wrenches on their dad’s race vehicle and they never lost that interest.
At first, the Melton family race team got the Dakota on the track for Austin to get some racing experience when he was 15 years old, but they were tight for space at their two-bay shop and they wanted to get to working on the Dart. They made the decision to sell the Dakota and focus on the same 1968 Dodge Dart that Lenny’s dad had given him when he was 12, starting with a low deck 451 big block until they came across a 528-cubic-inch, all-aluminum Indy cylinder heads engine that was freshly built by Buck Racing. Melton and his boys installed that monstrous engine in the car and it made “a shit-ton of power”; around 1,050 horsepower naturally aspirated and around 1,500 horsepower with the aid of nitrous oxide.
That was the engine in this 1968 Dart when Lenny Melton won Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge back in 2017 and later that same year, 17-year-old Austin won the Unlimited Class at Street Car Takeover, running in the low-5-second range in the 8th mile. For those who aren’t sure, running in the low-5-second range in the 8th mile leads to a quarter-mile time in the high-7s or low-8s. In fact, Lenny explained that he had the car “turned down and pretty tame” for that event, that the engine would have gotten the car into the 4.70s, but running in the 5.1 range was around the limit for the chassis. In other words, this car with the engine that won Roadkill 2017 was comfortably capable of running in the 7-second quarter-mile range. The videos below show Lenny Melton making his qualifying runs at Roadkill 2017, fighting through traction issues to drive his way into the money rounds.
A short time later, Austin went away to college and the Dart sat a bit, until Brandon began looking to go racing a couple years later. At that point, Lenny Melton had been active building monstrous modern 392 and SRT® Hellcat-powered vehicles for Mopar® owners in his area. One of his customers tore up an SRT Hellcat block and Melton replaced it with a new engine, but he saw a use for the damaged block. He realized that no one had built a high-compression, big cam Gen 3 HEMI engine, so that was when Lenny and Brandon set out to build for the latest powerplant of the Melton 1968 Dart.
The SRT Hellcat block is bored 30-over and fitted with a 392 crankshaft that has been cut down to accommodate smaller Chevy rod journals. This adds some additional stroke and leads to a greater collection of connecting rod options. The Meltons run a shorter rod with more compression height on the piston, making the whole assembly stronger and more durable. He points out that the engine block build is unique, but the cylinder heads are stock 6.4-liter Apache heads, with the only change from stock being the valve springs. They wanted to show what the stock heads could do and they have done so in fantastic fashion, running 14.5-to-1 compression with a “pretty radial camshaft for a hydraulic roller”, achieving his goal of making this modern engine sound like a classic 426 HEMI engine.
Once this engine was together, Brandon began racing Melton’s 1968 Dart and, like his older brother, he quickly proved to be a natural. This engine makes around 750 horsepower without the nitrous and upwards of 1,150 with the juice, allowing Brandon to get down to the 5.40s at 127 miles per hour in the 8th mile with a built 727 Chrysler transmission and a Dana rear differential. For those wondering, this engine is carbureted, not fuel injected, although Melton and his sons do also build EFI engines.
After racing for a few years, Brandon graduated and got a full-time job that keeps him busy, but Austin has finished college and returned home, where he has returned to racing the 1968 Dart. This season, he has gone to the finals at three major events and came home with one win, competing in everything from no prep to traditional dial-in bracket racing. Also during this season, Lenny Melton got back behind the wheel of his Dart for Roadkill Nights and once again, he was the quickest Dodge in the Big Tire class and the highest-placing Dodge in the program, finishing second overall.
“To take a car that was built 25 years ago and outrun some of Drag Week’s biggest names on the street is really special for my family,” said Lenny Melton. “We work hard for it but worth every dime and hour spent.”
While in Metro Detroit for Roadkill, MSHS Hemi’Sanity and the Woodward Dream Cruise, Melton drove his 8-second Dart all over the area, showcasing its ability to do more than just tear up the track.
Lenny Melton’s future plans are to retire his 1968 Dart from track use, using it instead just for street driving and cruise-ins. He says that there might be some track time for his dart in the future, but with “other cars” in the works, saying that “she has earned a good life from here on out.” He has always put lots of street miles on the car and with the nitrous setup, the current Gen 3 HEMI engine makes for a nice, quick cruiser.
Some other interesting key points about Lenny Melton’s 1968 Dodge Dart are that the body is all steel with the exception of the hood and bumpers, it is running stock Chrysler front suspension components with Melton’s own coil-over spring design, the chassis is stock other than mini-tubs and a parachute and it still has 100% stock interior, including the back seat and factory front bucket seats. It should also be noted that over the years, Lenny Melton has done all of the work to this car himself – including paint and body work – along with building the engine, transmission and differential and handling all of the tuning.
