My Little Neon

It’s 2 a.m. at a north Georgia gas station. Angie and her race team partner, Drew, are heading home from Atlanta Motorsports Park, trailing three racecars. A stranger approaches Drew, wearing that look – part curiosity, part concern – that usually signals trouble.

“Are you the one that’s parked out there?” the man asks. “Is that your car?”

Drew tenses, bracing for trouble. Is there a parking issue, or did something fall off the trailer?

“Are you racing My Little Neon?” the man continues, his face lighting up. “That’s so amazing! I just read about you guys on DodgeGarage. I can’t believe I’m seeing you in person!”

This is what happens when you drive a rainbow-painted Dodge Neon covered in My Little Ponies and butterfly stickers: even at two in the morning in the middle of nowhere, recognition follows. Being mentioned in the footnotes of an article about a black-and-red NASCAR-engineered Neon does not stop your technicolor rocket from unexpectedly stealing the show.

Welcome to the improbable, delightful world of My Little Neon, the racecar that shouldn’t be as fast as it is, shouldn’t be as reliable as it is, and definitely shouldn’t be making grown men squeal with excitement at truck stops. But here we are.

Let’s address the pony in the room: the Neon’s reputation. For every enthusiast who respects its potential, ten dismiss it as “just a Neon.” Angie Shulz’s car proves this platform deserves real respect – maybe more than typical compact imports.

“In the Lucky Dog series last year, we were in the top 10 in overall points just from participation,” Angie explains. “When other cars are crashing, exploding, and running off track, and blowing up, and losing wheels, we’ll just keep turning laps around them.”

The car’s modification list is refreshingly short. It started life as a racecar with a 2.4-liter PT Cruiser motor swap for a little extra horsepower. The drivetrain is essentially stock. The suspension is stock. Hell, the air conditioning system is still in there; on rainy days, they just turn it on and defog the windows like they’re commuting to work.

“At most races, we’re swapping tires, checking brake pads, checking fluids and then we go get dinner,” Angie says. “I’ve replaced the front axles maybe once or twice in five years of racing. Bearings we go through infrequently, and honestly, we’re changing things more out of routine than wear and tear.”

Compare that to the Volkswagen GTI parked next to them at Barber Motorsports Park, which spit out a rear bearing and hub one day, then ejected a driveshaft the next. Mk3 VWs will do that. The Neon? Not so much!

The car’s reliability creates a coaching challenge. “My drivers worry about every vibration because they’ve never experienced major failures – it’s just a flat-spotted tire, not a disaster,” Angie says.

What’s more, there’s something deeply unsettling about being chased down by a rainbow blur covered in ponies. Angie knows this. She’s counting on it.

“I think there’s a lot psychologically happening when you’re getting trailed and closed on by a very loud rainbow-painted car with ponies and butterflies,” she says with barely contained glee. “The paint job contributes to the dread for their competitors in a meaningful way. Between that and the reliability and safe driving, those are the biggest factors that everybody knows us for.”

The car campaigns in Lucky Dog Racing League’s slower C-class, running 200-treadwear tires. It shouldn’t be intimidating. And yet…

“I think a lot of guys come out thinking they’re gonna just muscle past us on the straightaways without any problem,” Angie explains. “But you get us on the right track, and we’ll be dogging everybody in our class at any and every point on track.”

The secret weapons are incredible reliability and a really good chassis. While rear-drive competitors are over-braking into corners, then relying on horsepower to haul down the straightaways, the Neon is incredibly easy to maintain momentum in, through, and off the corners. Set it up correctly, carry more speed through the corner than your competitors, and you’ll blow past cars without needing shady moves or desperate maneuvers.

“In Turn One at Carolina Motorsports Park, people will be watching, and they’ll be like, ‘that car’s on three wheels,'” Angie says. “We’ll be taking the turn, and it just handles. It goes. It’s not stepping out on you.”

At Barber’s Museum Corner, she rides the outside curb with 60 percent of the car up on the rumble strips, smooth sailing over obstacles that send other drivers into conservation mode. “Everybody’s just babying it,” she observes. “We feel comfortable carrying more speed because this chassis is just so good.”

The Neon doesn’t have enough power to overwhelm its front tires, which paradoxically makes it faster through technical sections. It’s the automotive embodiment of that old Top Gear wisdom: it is always fun to drive a slow car fast.

“You can wring that car’s neck everywhere you go,” Angie confirms. “Every turn is so much fun. Whether it’s a carousel or here at Barber, Turn Five is amazing because you’re going slightly downhill, and if you brake and time the rear-end rotation perfectly, you are back to power multiple seconds before the other cars in our class. It’s like a chef’s kiss. We are just carving through everybody, turning on the outside, turning on the inside, carrying more speed because everybody’s freaking out and relying on their straight-line power.”

In the rain, the car transforms into something approaching witchcraft. “It’s a cheater car,” Angie laughs. “It’s its own cheat code. If you just want an easy win, take the car out in the rain in a series that allows rain tires.”

My Little Neon debuted at a COVID-era 24-hour Lemons race in 2020 at Carolina Motorsports Park. With five or six drivers rotating, it spent little time off track – mainly searching for a replacement part. Otherwise, it simply lapped, rainbow LEDs flashing like a rolling rave.

“If there’s a party going on in the pits, we’ll throw up the LEDs and get the rainbow lights going,” Angie says. Eventually, the exterior LEDs came off, but the interior lights remain, ready to deploy for paddock celebrations.

RGB light Installation: https://www.facebook.com/MyLittleNeon/videos/1633646716812847

The My Little Pony collection associated with the car started organically. One of her driver’s wives began sweeping up cute ponies whenever she found them on sale. The toys accumulated! Quickly! Soon, they were zip-tied to the roll bars. Now, kids flock to the car, and Angie gives away ponies to anyone who comments on it. I brought one home to my wife that somehow ended up on my desk. “They get swag,” she mentioned. “We get the joy of having an awesome race and making people smile.”

The rainbow paint? Rattle cans. All of it. “Eventually, I’ll probably need to give it a fresh coat,” Angie admits. “The purple’s fading. Apparently, rattle can only lasts for so long.”

Ask Angie for her favorite moment in the car, and she doesn’t hesitate: Atlanta Motorsports Park. The team podiumed. Every driver was wringing the car’s neck with perfect mechanical sympathy. And then came the back side of the track – the fast side, where a momentum car like the Neon theoretically shouldn’t shine.

AMP on Track: https://www.facebook.com/MyLittleNeon/videos/1457713254795193

“I set the car up perfectly for that entire back half,” Angie remembers, her words speeding up with the memory. “I passed like three or four A- and B-class cars. Foot to the floor the whole time. Up the blind uphill turn where everybody else is exercising caution, then powering through the back carousel on the inside while they’re sliding out on the outside with no grip.”

She was in fourth and fifth gear, upshifting through traffic. The corner workers were laughing, actually laughing, watching the rainbow Neon demolish supposedly faster machinery. “It was atrocious for the other cars,” Angie says, not even trying to hide her satisfaction. “But it was a blast. The other cars just needed to do better.”

Future plans for My Little Neon are refreshingly modest. Maybe some weight reduction – there’s still plenty of unnecessary metal to cut out, and that entire air conditioning system could go if they wanted to chase tenths. Perhaps upgraded camshafts and new shocks. Headlights for another 24-hour race. That’s about it.

“Why break what’s not broken?” Angie asks, and it’s hard to argue with her logic. They podium in C-class. When thrown into B-class, they finish mid-pack against cars with significant modifications. They’re consistently top-third in the field. The car rarely visits the garages during race weekend, doesn’t murder wheel bearings and doesn’t seem to suffer the catastrophic failures that plague so many racecars.

What started as a quirky car with a funny paint job has become something else entirely. Proof that a front-wheel-drive economy car with minimal modifications and maximum maintenance can embarrass supposedly superior machinery through nothing more complicated than proper setup, skilled driving and the confidence to carry speed where others brake in fear.

It’s an adult go-kart that makes people smile, makes kids cheer and makes competitors question their choices. It appears in magazines, gets recognized at random gas stations and accumulates an ever-growing collection of My Little Ponies wherever they race.

Most importantly, it keeps crossing the finish line, lap after lap, weekend after weekend, year after year. In endurance racing, that’s the only thing that really matters.

The Dodge Neon launched in 1995 with a TV commercial where they pulled one back like a toy and shot it down a hilly road. It appeared front and center on the screen at the end of the ad and simply said “Hi.” Three decades later, Neons are still making people smile. Still defying expectations. Still proving that sometimes the most unlikely platform becomes the most unforgettable one.

Just ask anyone who’s been passed by a rainbow at Atlanta Motorsports Park. Or better yet, ask that guy at the Georgia gas station at two in the morning, starstruck in the glow of the fluorescent lights, unable to believe his luck at stumbling across My Little Neon in the wild.

“If you don’t want to get passed by the Neon,” Angie offers with a grin, “do better. Or yeah, get your own Neon. Everybody should get a Neon.”

My Little Neon takes the Checkered: https://www.facebook.com/MyLittleNeon/videos/311915619874395

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