Back for year seven, MotorTrend Presents Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge staged an exhilarating return to Woodward Avenue on Saturday, August 13, drawing a one-day attendance record of more than 40,000 performance enthusiasts to M1 Concourse in Pontiac, Michigan, along with more than a million online views, for the popular one-day festival of street-legal drag racing.

“This is the seventh year of MotorTrend Presents Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge and what a difference — we’ve gone from racing in the parking lot of an abandoned stadium to legal street drag racing on historic Woodward Avenue, with M1 Concourse serving as an amazing stage for our horsepower circus,” said Tim Kuniskis, Dodge brand chief executive officer – Stellantis. “It was great seeing thousands of Dodge enthusiasts come out to the event and cheer Alex Taylor as she defended her crown and took the win in the Dodge Direction Connection Grudge Race. We’re going to give performance lovers even more to cheer about as we push the pedal on Dodge Speed Week, with three separate nights of worldwide product reveals and a full brand display on Woodward Avenue during Dream Cruise weekend on August 20.”

Historic Woodward Avenue’s overnight transformation into a 1/8-mile straight-line dragstrip hosted 115 street-legal drag racers, while spectators had the chance to get their adrenaline pumping with thrill and drift rides in Dodge Challenger and Dodge Charger SRT Hellcats and Ram TRX trucks on the M1 Concourse.

Back for 2022, RoadKill Nights leveled up last year’s Grudge Race, adding a new spin to the Dodge Direct Connection Grudge Match. Eight automotive personalities faced off for a chance to take on 2021 champion, Alex Taylor, on the drag strip. All nine competitors – Tavarish, Westen Champlin, throtl, Christina Roki, Demonology, Corruptt Builds, Collete Davis, David Patterson, and Alex Taylor— received the challenge of building and running a Direct Connection crate engine that they could modify as they pleased, however, they had the added challenge of competing with a Direct Connection six-speed manual transmission, and within a $10,000 budget.

Defending champion, drag racer, mechanic and co-host of MotorTrend’s Hot Rod Garage Taylor matched her 1955 Plymouth Savoy against the 2016 Dodge Challenger of Champlin, who beat out seven other automotive builders in eliminations for the right to face Taylor in the finals. It was Taylor taking the win again, launching strong and outrunning Champlin to the finish stripe.

“There was definitely a target on my back and heavy pressure,” said Taylor, who came into the Dodge Direct Connection Grudge Race knowing a mix of eight returning and rookie competitors were aiming to snatch away her crown. “For me, this is something that I take and hold near and dear to my heart, drag racing and coming out to this event specifically. Coming into it, we busted our butts, and it was the most grueling month, but to come back and actually hold the title again, it’s indescribable and a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”

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