Words by Jeff Burk
Photos by Jeff Burk and Roger Richards
10/7/05

or many fans of Pro Mods, their attraction is much more than just the fact that they are the quickest and fastest 'slammers on the planet. For many the attraction of the class is the nostalgic body styles. For those fans a Pro Modified isn't a real Pro Modified unless the chassis is draped with a squatty body '37 Chevy coupe or a Coke bottle-shaped, chopped, channeled, and stretched '41 Willys or maybe a sleek '51 Studebaker body that looks like it just came off of the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Recently more racers have built cars using thinly disguised Pro Stock-style bodies, and some fans feared that Pro Mod was in danger of becoming a class dominated by either '63 Corvettes or 2004-5 Detroit body styles.

Enter veteran Pro Mod and dyed-in-the-wool Mopar racer Chip King. He has reversed the Dodge Stratus/'63 'Vette trend of late by trading in his 2004 Dodge Avenger for a '69 Dodge Daytona Charger. King built the body and mold himself, Vanishing Point Race Cars built the chassis, and engine guru Bill Barrett put together the 526 inch supercharged Hemi. This car is one of the very few Pro Modifieds racing today with a period-correct body and engine combination.

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Dodge Daytona Chargers can trace their lineage directly to the NASCAR factory wars of the late Sixties when Ford, Chevy, and Mopar were fighting for supremacy. At that time NASCAR allowed the Mopar 426 Hemi engine and Chevy and Ford's 427 engines as a powerplants. Mopar didn't have a car with the aerodynamics to handle the hemi's horsepower so in the middle of the 1969 season Mopar engineers modified the stock Daytona body by adding among other things, a trick aerodynamic nose and a unique wing to the rear deck both of which gave the Daytona body increased down force and better handling characteristics.

King and Barrett have just had a couple of races to shake down the new-old Charger. The original easily went 200 mph on NASCAR's ovals almost 40 years ago. The King-Barrett version has already gone 6.20's at over 200 in quarter-mile racing and ran a 4.00 at the just completed ADRL Dragstock II at Carolina Dragway. This possibly could be the slickest Pro Mod since the inception of the class and if the early numbers are any indication it might become the fastest. So for your viewing pleasure Mopar and Pro Mod fans we present Chip King's Charger.