Despite being just 20 years old, Matthew Tomko looks as if he’s barely old enough to drive. This college student lives in Ohio, is studying Mechanical Engineering and is ready to graduate to the big leagues of quarter-mile competition and race in NHRA’s Factory Stock Showdown class. He’ll make this life-changing adventure in a new Challenger Drag Pak as he readies for the next chapter in his schooling. Quite a move for this young man, whose last car he drove down the drag strip was a 1972 Plymouth Duster infused with a 440 just for good measure. It’s a solid nine-second machine that both Matthew and his father worked on together. While many of Matthew’s peers were playing video games on an Xbox, or watching TikTok videos on their iPhones, Matthew was laying underneath his Mopar® vehicle tuning the suspension for a better hook, or doing maintenance on the mighty Big Block and making sure it was ready, willing and able to plant him firmly in the seat when his right foot stabbed the accelerator. But now, he and his father have gone all in and are ready to enter the “seven-second” zone with their shiny new supercharged, Go Mango Challenger Drag Pak.
“It’s like a dream come true. I’ve been into cars my whole life, everything from muscle cars to racecars, I just love them. I’m excited to get behind the wheel of this Drag Pak and see what it’ll run, but first, we’re doing some on-track testing and tuning as I’ll need to get acclimated to this 1,500-horsepower machine before hitting NHRA and NMCA events,” said Matthew. So, what’s going through Matthew’s head as he’s about the embark on this next chapter of his young racing career and wheel a 1,500-horsepower Challenger Drag Pak? “I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be a bit intimidating, but based off the experience I’ve had racing my nine-second Duster, I’m actually pretty confident with it. I feel it’ll be an easy car to handle, I feel it’ll hook up very well. I am concerned about spinning off the line as these cars can be hard to launch so I will be focused on getting the car to hook and keeping it in the groove.”
The person making sure this new Drag Pak will perform as expected in Matthew’s father, David Tomko. An avid drag racer himself and self-proclaimed gearhead, David, along with his brother and sister, run their family dealership in Avon Lake, Ohio – Ed Tomko Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge/Ram. “We’ve been around for over 40 years and have always loved Mopar muscle cars. I guess you can say my love for going fast began when my brother and I were young and were into dirt bike racing. When our father bought the dealership, that changed our lives,” said David. The defining moment for him and his brother came when a smashed-up 1968 Plymouth Road Runner got towed into the dealership. “My brother and I looked at our dad and asked if we could have the car. He wanted to know what we were going to do with it, and that’s when we told him we were going to go drag racing. He told us if you do all the work and pay for the parts, you can have it,” smiled David. That’s all it took for David and his brother to go down the path of fast Mopar vehicles and since then, they’ve amassed quite a collection. When it came time to hand down his passion for fast cars, David didn’t have to look far as it was in his son’s DNA.
The Challenger Drag Pak the Tomkos have purchased is not one of the 50 “turnkey” units that were offered through Direct Connection in 2021. Rather, it’s a conglomeration of parts right out of the Direct Connection catalog. Since David and his son missed the window to purchase one of the 50 Drag Paks, that still didn’t stop them from getting the ultimate Challenger racecar. “When I had confirmation that Dodge was not going to build another complete Drag Pak in 2022 or 2023, I went through the Direct Connection catalog and began ordering all the body kits, interior kits and the thousand numerous parts needed to complete the car,” noted David. With crates and boxes of parts showing up at David’s dealership, he made the wise decision not to mess around and truck the parts over to Watson Racing in Brownstown Township, Michigan, and have their experts complete the Drag Pak. Remember, it was Watson that assembled the 50 turnkey Drag Pak two years earlier and they know their stuff on these fast and intricate machines. Ironically, the Watson Racing facility is about 200 yards from the fabled pit entrance of the old Detroit Dragway where Mopar icons like the Ramchargers set world records with their Max Wedge and HEMI® engine-powered racecars. But that was almost 60 years ago and now we have production-based “door slammers” going much faster than the flimsy, gutted and unsafe injected Funny Cars of that bygone era. These days, Direct Connection has taken the hassle out of building a racecar through their extensive product offerings and racers can take advantage of that with a hassle-free ordering process.
While the ordering process was easy, David wanted this Drag Pak to be unique and stand out. “I went back and forth for a few months to get the body painted in Go Mango. Luckily, some folks with Direct Connection and others at the plant made it happen. However, since the Drag Pak body kits only come in white, the guys at my body shop had to paint the front and rear bumper covers, door handles and roof moldings in Go Mango,” said David. When asked if David will ever wheel his new Drag Pak down the track, David’s fine letting his son handle the driving chores. “I enjoy making sure the car is well prepared, safe and ready to race when we get to the track. I get enjoyment watching it go down the strip and working with Matthew on getting the Drag Pak dialed in.”
The construction of a Drag Pak out of the catalog is very similar to how the original 50 were built at Watson Racing. “We follow a similar process on the construction of the rolling chassis as we did on the turnkey Drag Paks we built back in 2021. The only major difference is the engine, chassis and driveline have to be ordered separately and the customer can choose any powertrain combination they want to use depending on the NHRA or NMCA class they want to run. Since David Tomko is going to run some Factory Stock Showdown, his Drag Pak was built with the class-legal 354-cubic-inch HEMI engine running an approved Whipple Supercharger. Currently, our shop is building three rolling chassis Drag Paks for customers and since this is the last year for the Challenger in its current platform, our facility might see a few more Drag Paks being scheduled for construction in the next few months,” said Chuck Watson II of Watson Racing.
So, if you’re looking for a brand-new production-based ride that will send you hurtling down the quarter-mile in seven seconds while looking like something you could drive to a cruise night, better act fast and order a Challenger Drag Pak Rolling Chassis from Direct Connection. Hopefully this video of David and Matthew’s Drag Pak making some angry noises on Watson Racing’s chassis dyno will motivate you to get one before it’s too late!