A few weeks back, we brought you a look at the Hurricane Grudge Match portion of 2024 Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge, which was won by Morgan Evans and her 1987 Dodge D150. We shared videos of each of the early elimination races and the final round between Evans’ D150 and Garrett Reed’s Dodge Challenger SRT® Demon, but we only talked about the actual race day.
Morgan Evans recently published a video on her Torque n’ Tungsten YouTube channel that takes us all along for the ride from Florida to Michigan – capping it all off with a big win in the Hurricane Grudge Match. In the video, we get to watch as Evans makes some test runs at Milan Dragway, how she helps another competitor during that test session and how she makes her way through the Roadkill Nights Grudge Match program.
The video begins with Morgan Evans and her fiancé, Jason Kastner, making their way from Florida to Michigan with their Hurricane-powered 1987 Dodge D150 in tow. Along the way, they make a stop at Evans’ grandmother’s home, where she poses for some pictures before getting a good night’s sleep, but they are up and on the road to Metro Detroit well before sunrise the next morning.
Once Evans and Kastner arrive in Michigan, they head to Milan Dragway to get her and the freshly built truck some test time on the drag strip. They were joined at the track by fellow Roadkill Nights Grudge Match competitor Allison Kovalik and her 1999 Dodge Dakota. At one point, Evans and Kastner pull the air intake system off of their truck to let Kovalik use it on the Dakota, hoping that it would fix an issue with the truck not wanting to shift. Kovalik would eventually get the shifting issue fixed, but the air intake system and the integrated mass air flow sensor did not help at the track.
On Evans’ first 8th mile run down the track, her Dodge D150 ran a 7.46 at 96 miles per hour and with some changes in the launch process, she cut that down by two tenths on her next run. Later on in the day, she would perfect her launch strategy, leaving in second gear and building as much boost as possible on the starting line, which led to an 8th mile time of 7.02 at 100.8 miles per hour. They would continue to make more tuning adjustments to the suspension coupled with more practice on the launch, but that 7.02 was their best run in testing. For those wondering, an 8th mile time in the 7.00 range would put this truck in the high-10-second range, so with the Hurricane engine, this 1987 Dodge D150 is about as quick as a stock Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat.
The video then moves onto day 1 of 2024 Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge, which was supposed to include a few test runs down the temporary track for the Grudge Match teams. Unfortunately, when the decision was made to move the racing action from Woodward Avenue to the long straightaway of the M1 Concourse road course, there was additional setup time needed. That additional setup time ate up the test time for the Grudge Match teams, so Evans did not make a pass on the first day – making her time at Milan Dragway the day before that much more important.
Finally, the video moves on to the actual day of Roadkill Nights 2024, showing Evans and Kastner preparing for race day. Evans made a few test passes, one of which was against Kovalik and her Dakota, which did shift properly on race day. Meanwhile, Evans’ D150 looked very strong on each of her test hits. However, after Tom Bailey broke on the first day, both Mike Musto in the Hornet and Westen Champlin in the Roadrunner also broke on race day, leading to a field of just four competitors for the Hurricane Grudge Match.
We then get to listen in on the drivers’ meeting and watch the chip pull, which pits Evans against Herman “Demonology” Young and his Dodge Challenger “kart”. Evans gets off of the line a little quicker than Young, but the bodyless Challenger quickly takes the lead. Just when it looks like Evans’ day is over, Young got loose, crossed the center line and was disqualified – giving the win to Morgan Evans and her D150.
In the finals, Evans takes on the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon of Garrett Reed and, once again, she gets away from the starting line better than her opponent. This time, the Challenger in the other lane is unable to put the power down, allowing the 1987 Dodge D150 pickup to roar to victory in the Roadkill Nights Hurricane Grudge Match. The video ends with a few clips that display the camaraderie shared between the competitors at the end of the day, as Evans accepts her trophy and celebrates her big win.
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