BEATING THE ODDS

T h i s r e a l C h a r g e r 5 0 0 n o w h a s a H e m i , a h i s t o r y a n d a p i l e o f 1 1 - s e c o n d t i m e s l i p s

by GEOFF STUNKARD

T WAS LATE 1968, and Dodge was…losing.

IPeople loved the new 1968 Charger styling, for sure. But get one up over 170 MPH and two things happened. The inset grille was a giant air scoop, lifting the nose, and air rising from the flying buttress inset rear window wanted to pull the differential up. If you wanted brown underwear, even as a he-man NASCAR hero, this was the way to do it.

So Dodge boss Bob McCurry told his guys to figure something out. They did. They put in a ’68 Coronet grille and a flush rear window and, voila, problem solved. They called it a Charger 500. Except the Torino Talladega and Cyclone Spoiler showed up soon after, and FoMoCo won at Daytona in 1969. McCurry was really pissed now—the result was the Dodge Charger Daytona. But you knew that already.

Ironically, the late ’68 debut meant few mags tested the standard 1969 Charger, and lots of 500s appeared in print if little elsewhere. The 500 package soon went away, too, as they were required to meet any rules that applied to the Daytona as well. So the fact a real one is still racing in 2022 is pretty cool, right? That is thanks to owner Tom Tarzwell and wrench/driver Bill Atwood of Old Saybrook, CT.

Bill is no stranger to Mopes, and even has a ’65 altered wheelbase Plymouth he plays with. But the chance to rework the already-restored Charger 500, a 440-CI / 4-speed R/T combo when it left Creative Industries in the fall of ’68, was a new challenge.

Looks old-school, but this one is full of tricks. 499-CI engine, CNC-ported heads, trick intake and carbs, 14:1 compression and a creative cam by Cam Dynamics put 650 HP on the dyno. However, thanks to tire size, it cannot all work at once. The Charger 500 was a 1969 model developed to help win races in NASCAR. After the legal batch was built, the design was immediately discontinued. Subcontractor Creative Industries reworked assembly-line 1969 Charger R/Ts to convert them. This one was a 440 Magnum / 4-speed / Dana 60 combo new, is Hemi / auto / 8¾ now.

“Tom is a friend of mine, and we had already put a Street Hemi in the Charger when he came to see me,” says Bill. “He wanted something faster than the Duster he was racing, and says, ‘Bill, let’s just make this into a racecar.’ This car was rebuilt for stockappearing (F.A.S.T.) race classes, and I wanted to push it deep into the 11s.”

To that end, it would mean more than a little bit of change. The four-speed came out so a worked T-flite (with a column-mounted shifter, too) could go in, which could work better without having sticky race tires. The Dana gave way to an easy-swap pumpkin-type 8¾˝ rear, and the stock Street Hemi ended up on a display stand.

“This one’s a stroker, but everything has to look stock on the outside,” Bill notes about the new engine seen in the car now. “You must run factorystyle manifolds, you must run cylinder heads with a correct casting number. You need a block that meets the standards; the early Mopar megablock

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PowerPort 190 Airflow Results

PowerPort 190

Test Engine: 10.92:1 compression 365 c.i.d. LA-series engine with Trick Flow PowerPort 190 cylinder heads (TFS-61417802-C00), custom hydraulic roller camshaft (230°/236° duration @ .050"; .577"/.572" lift; 110° lobe separation), Trick Flow roller lifters (TFS-21400010), Trick Flow Track Heat® intake manifold (TFS-61400111), a 750 cfm carburetor, Trick Flow billet aluminum carburetor spacer (TFS-2141501B), Hooker Super Competition headers with 13∕4" primaries, 3" dual exhaust with Flowmaster muffl ers. Lift Value Intake Flow CFM Exhaust Flow CFM .100" 66 54 .200" 134 121 .300" 200 181 .400" 248 213 .500" 281 231 .600" 293 237 .700" 301 240

Tests conducted at 28" of water (pressure). Bore size: 4.000"; exhaust with 17∕8 " pipe.

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is allowed. And where we race, the tire is limited to what the car was delivered with. For instance, you can put on F70-15s if it was delivered with them new, and you can then go one size larger, G70s, than the car could potentially have had. Still not much!” So, since Bill has a repair shop and has been a full-time mechanic his whole adult life, he is no stranger to spinning wrenches. The motor he built is now 499 cubes that dyno-pulled 680 horsepower. An Eagle crank, forged rods, 14:1 CP pistons, ARP fasteners, and Total Seal rings fill up the shortblock, balanced by Center Auto Machine. The cam is from Cam Motion—Bill says solid lifter with bumps, you will get no other info – with Comp lifters, Barton rocker arms, and a set of OEM iron heads CNCported by Modern Cylinder Head working the valvetrain safely to 7500 RPM. Dave Dudek gets credits for the OEM inline intake and AFB setup, while the lube comes up from a Milodon pan and spark flies thanks to an combination of visible (Mopar) and not visible (MSD) ignition pieces. Oh, and Bill dials that in with an MSD grid screen and Racepak sportsman setup as well. No, it ain’t ’69, baby…

The trans is an A727 tweaked on by Randy J, coupled with a reverse-pattern manual valve body and 2500 RPM Ultimate converter. The car uses a 4.10 ring by US Gear and a spool to keep it hooked. Speaking of hooked, remember that comment earlier on brown underwear?

“Well, there’s several tricks,” says Bill about going 11-seconds in 1320 feet with a 3800-pound B-body on skinny tires. “Mainly, it’s really ankle control toward the end of it. We have been dabbling in some electronics to slow down the car by retarding the timing. The control box lets me take some timing out for the first-, secondor second-and-a-half of the launch to keep the tires from smoking.

“You find in this class, the more power you make, the more you need a crutch, because a human can’t do the same thing over and over again. So, for instance, the big-block Corvettes running in the class that are doing what they’re doing, they’re doing that with a ton of electronics.”

Bill Atwell and the 500 face.

In addition to the grille, the rear window was brought flush by adding a plug, which also meant a very narrow deck lid not suitable for carrying Aunt Mabel’s steamer trunk. 500 graphics were a final touch. The car was already painted in correct EV2 when purchased.

From a 4-speed / Dana combo to the A727 / 8¾ diff meant you could save a few pounds by moving the shifter to the column and tossing the C16 console out. Car still tips scale at 3800-plus big ones, and manual-valve body means column handle has to be pulled to make shifts. Up in the glove box, what’s this? A Racepak and MSD pieces allows the driver to briefly remove timing at the hit, preventing the skinnies from broiling away. The burnout is crucial to getting what little traction is possible.

Now, we know real men throw gear shifts, and though the automatic is there to be able to go rounds, it is still a manual valve body. Losing the clutch isn’t an issue. Bill’s goal is winning, not whining.

“Yes. A four-speed can be run in the class and it does work, but it’s one more element to being able to be competitive. Being able to put the car into the timers and have a reaction time and then finesse the clutch and throttle at the same time, you’re really starting to spread yourself thin at that point.”

Truth be told, Bill has had his fun with the Dodge to this time, and these changes were really done getting it ready for Tom, who, like the Boss, is not getting any younger. The idea is to make racing it easy and fun, so Bill has gone to the edge with an 11.07 at 125 MPH best (at US 131 in Martin, Mich.) and is now dialing it back a little to keep it consistent when Tom is back in it. Bill himself, well, he is now racing in Dudek’s notorious black Hemi Road Runner thanks to its current owner, Scott Goodspeed.

“The challenge is trying to figure out how to get that power to the ground,” he says about the stock supercar racing series, “and it’s definitely a lot of fun figuring out when you do get it. A real large sense of pride, you know, and we’ll do six to eight races a season, which is just about as much as I can handle. I don’t want to turn it into a job.”

The Charger 500 was a limited model for a limited time. This one is still making the grade long after its original reason for being has long faded away. Beside, most of the time under 170 MPH, the whitey tighties stay that way.

Tires’ tracks show the effort of getting through the gear shifts. Rain Man says K-mart has underwear on sale…on Tuesdays…