Westen Champlin is like the polite version of an automotive mad scientist. His ‘Redneck Science’ builds have taken the interwebs by storm. While half of his builds are pointless and purely for entertainment, others bring out the auto engineering genius in him. Earlier in the month, he began working on a project Hellcat racecar, in collaboration with Dodge for this year’s Roadkill Nights Dodge drag event.
This year’s task involved building a race Hellcat with a potent 6.2-liter Demon engine delivered by Dodge. While the "Roadkill Nights Dodge" drag event took place on August 13th at the M1 Concourse track in Pontiac, Michigan, Champlin released on August 24th a video that shows what problems he encountered during the process.
He only had 21-days to complete the task but did it in two weeks. Champlin and crew put together a Hellcat race car capable of pushing 1,500 ponies.
The next crucial step after building was testing. The crew went to Mokan Dragway in Asbury, Missouri, to see if it could handle well down a drag strip track.
But there was a problem. The Hellcat race car spun a lot during takeoff. However, Champlin and his crew had a plan. It involved applying a little bit of redneck science. They stacked weights at the back to hold it down.
It worked, but the clutch let out before they left for the competition. But it’s only a clutch – it’s replaceable, and it wasn’t going to stop them from competing.
With a stock clutch and all the odds against them, the Hellcat race car took to the drag strip and ripped hard to the finals of Road Kill Nights Dodge drag events.
Well, Redneck science works! He pulled through and won the Grudge match.
“We won the Grudge Match, we have a trophy, but now, we got to race against Alex Taylor. Another thing is our car has run multiple times in the last 30 minutes. It really, really freaking hot,” Champlin explained.
So, did he win? We won’t spill the beans yet. Instead, we’ll let you enjoy the rest of Champlin’s Redneck science genius in the video below.
Humphrey is a car enthusiast whose love and passion for automobiles extended into collecting, writing, driving, and working on cars. He got his passion for cars from his Dad, who spent thousands of hours working on his old junky 1970 E20 Toyota Corolla. Years later, he would end up doing the same with a series of lemons he’s owned throughout his adult life. Full profile
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