{"id":42585,"date":"2020-09-05T21:37:16","date_gmt":"2020-09-06T01:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=42585"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:22:18","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:22:18","slug":"new-dodge-hemi-challenge-champion-crowned-at-the-2020-nhra-u-s-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2020\/09\/new-dodge-hemi-challenge-champion-crowned-at-the-2020-nhra-u-s-nationals.html","title":{"rendered":"New Dodge HEMI®<\/sup> Challenge Champion Crowned at the 2020 NHRA U.S. Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 2020 edition of the Dodge HEMI\u00ae<\/sup> Challenge has crowned a new king at the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. The ever-popular dedicated Super Stock\/A-HEMI (SS\/AH) annual competition featuring 1968-model Dodge Dart and Plymouth Barracuda factory stock race cars, saw No.1 qualifier Stephen Yantus battle to become the first new winner in five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yantus, who earned the No. 1\nqualifier position aboard his \u201868 HEMI-powered Plymouth Barracuda with an 8.477\nsecond, 158.50 mph pass, put together a string of quick and consistent elapsed\ntime laps at 8.412, 8.452 and 8.413 seconds through eliminations with a solo\nrun and wins over Russ Campbell and past winner Bucky Hess (2001). He advanced\nto his first Dodge HEMI Challenge final round showdown to face Steve Comella\nwho had qualified 15th<\/sup> but made his way to his first final as well\nwith wins over Jim Pancake, Gary Wolkwitz, and Steve Kent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the all-Cuda final round,\nYantus beat Comella off the start with a 0.030 to 0.062-second reaction time\nand led the way to his quickest run of the weekend; an 8.410 second pass at\n158.28 mph. With the win, Yantus earned his first coveted 42.6 lbs. Dodge HEMI\nChallenge trophy uniquely-crafted with a 426 HEMI cylinder head along with a\n$15,000 award. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe kept on plugging away, kept\non chugging, and my whole team, my owner of the car, (engine builder and past\nwinner) Charlie Westcott and Militia Racing Products built me the baddest\nbullet on the face of the planet,\u201d said an emotional Yantus of the\ncollaborative effort it took to get to the winner\u2019s circle. \u201cI mean that thing\nwent 40s all day and we were the only car in the 40s. I owe everything to my\nwhole crew and all of them. I was at driver and I got the call with this bad\ncar. I’m just grateful just the we got down through here. You know, we’re all\ndrag racers and they say sometimes you got to get lucky rather than be good. I\ngot a lot of luck but the car hung itself out every time and we never slacked\noff. We had it on kill all day. It went .049 (seconds), 45, and back-to-back\n41s. I can\u2019t thank (engine builder) Charlie Westcott enough for what he does\nfor us and this crew. It’s just a dream come true. We’ve been chasing this for\na long time along with our families. It’s really emotional and I just I can’t\nthank everybody enough for making this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The victory by Yantus ended the\nfour-year reign of Jimmy Daniel who had qualified No.2 in his 1968 Dodge Dart amongst\nthe 15-car field of contenders. Daniel suffered his first-ever defeat since\ntaking the wheel from his father Jim Daniel Sr. in 2016 against Jim Teuton in\nthe first round of eliminations with an 8.60 sec. to 8.58 loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to the final round, guest\nof honor and legendary Mopar\u00ae<\/sub> racer, Herb “Mr. 4 Speed\u201d McCandless, led the\nparade of Darts and Barracudas that participated in this year\u2019s Dodge HEMI\nChallenge down Indy\u2019s fabled return road aboard his own original 1968 Super\nStock HEMI Dart in celebration of the classic muscle cars that contributed to\nMopar and Dodge brands\u2019 legendary reputation and success at the drag strip.\n\nHighlights of the final\nelimination round of the Dodge HEMI Challenge, as well as the parade of participating\nDarts and \u2018Cudas, will be shown during coverage of 66th annual NHRA U.S.\nNationals on Sunday, September 6 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (EDT) on FS1 and then\non the FOX national broadcast network from 1-4 p.m. (EDT).\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2020 edition of the Dodge HEMI\u00ae Challenge has crowned a new king at the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. The ever-popular dedicated Super Stock\/A-HEMI (SS\/AH) annual competition featuring 1968-model Dodge Dart and Plymouth Barracuda factory stock race cars, saw No.1 qualifier Stephen Yantus battle to become the first new winner in five years. Yantus, who earned the No. 1 qualifier position aboard his \u201868 HEMI-powered Plymouth Barracuda with an 8.477 second, 158.50 mph pass, put together a string of quick and consistent elapsed time laps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":42587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[575],"tags":[528,615],"class_list":["post-42585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-drag-racing","tag-nhra"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/001-winnerscircle-hemichallenge6ro7qfiehi5gjicrtvv8ka2qmd-e1599356015292.jpeg","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42585"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42591,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42585\/revisions\/42591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}