This year’s MoParty came on like a fistful of spicy gas station peanuts – roasted, salty, and sizzlin’ hot. It was under our fingernails and stuck to our shirts, yet just so darn addictive that we couldn’t keep ourselves from grabbing handful after handful throughout a sweltering summer weekend in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
For two days, more than a hundred acres of Beech Bend Raceway were overtaken by unapologetic Chrysler chaos. Our perch at the onsite campground featured the sweet, persistent soundtrack of autocross cars sawing at the cones, tach needles bouncing at the drag strip, and show cars grunting by. And that didn’t even include the minivans but we’ll get to that later.
The appetizer was served on Friday, September 18, with gates swinging open at 8 a.m. to a slow drip of Dodge and Plymouth patrons that gained steam throughout the morning before tapering off in the mid-afternoon heat. To beat the crowd, we went straight to the swap meet which has continued to see steady growth since MoParty’s inception six years ago.
Highlights included all the usual cast of characters with intake and exhaust manifolds of all kinds, a wide array of used body panels, and nearly every flavor of air cleaner ever made. Memorabilia and signage also had a surprisingly strong showing.
Vintage Direct Connection goodies, always a favorite, were well-represented and headlined by a set of six collector steins. Kathy, Didi, Kimberly, Stephanie, Natalie, and Suzanne, DC’s ladies of the late-‘70s and early-‘80s, graced the stunning half-dozen. Everything about them looked fine except the price – $500 seemed a bit rich for decades-old drinkers that likely weren’t even dishwasher-safe.
Several items closer to a more appropriate valuation were found in the car corral, starting with a 1970 Plymouth Superbird clone project. What began as a ’70 Road Runner was well on its way to being winged and the selling owner had started it right. All body panels were steel with the exception of a fiberglass Janak nose and fender scoops. With most of the hard part of the conversion done, talking it down from its $45,000 ask just a bit might’ve been a fine buy for someone looking to become a warrior.
Closer to our speed and budget was a 2003 Dodge Intrepid police interceptor for $3,500. It’s got a cop motor, cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks, and…well, you know the drill. For as long and catamaran-like as these cars were, at least this one looked the part with a healthy push bar and requisite black rims.
Alas, the only items to follow us home were a decent 1969 Dodge Coronet trunk lid ($60) and obsolete low rise Weiand 8009 intake for RB engines ($150), both as “maybe I’ll need that someday” investment pieces.
By that time, the car show crowd had started to file in. Professional show-goers like the National Hemi Owners Association (NHOA) and Survivors were set up early, ears ready for a steady diet of earned oohs and aahs. The NHOA’s fleet was said to be more than forty strong.
Think you’d get bored looking at original Hemi car after Hemi car? Think again. Each had a story to tell, although most impressive might’ve been the letter tent and, no, this wasn’t a bunch of Chrysler 300s. Instead, it housed factory race cars defined by their four-character designations – A864 (1964 with aluminum fenders), A990 (1965), WO23 (1967 Dodge Coronet), RO23 (1967 Plymouth Belvedere II), LO23 (1968 Dodge Dart), and BO29 (1968 Plymouth Barracuda).
Stumbling through the manufacturers’ midway, we attempted to come down from that Hemi high only to be intoxicated by a Blackbird Performance Products booth that ended up having three supercharged G3 Hemi cars on hand for the weekend. Geoff Turk preached his G3 Hemi homily from a performance pulpit surrounded by Brian Bednar’s 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass (OldsMopar), the Dudley boys’ 1963 Plymouth Fury (Asphalt Hustler), and Brad Brunner’s 1976 AMC Hornet.
Notably, several suppliers opted for swap meet spaces rather than tents on the pavement. Classic Exhaust and Headlight Motor Man both took to the grassy desert while others like the aforementioned Blackbird, QA1, Trick Flow Specialties, and your own Mopar Connection Magazine laid claim to midway marquees.
Dixie Restorations and their immaculate 1969 Plymouth Road Runner with V02 two-tone paint shared the MCM space. Marsha, our 1970 Plymouth Fury III convertible attended again along with a for-sale 535-inch big block lung fresh off the dyno. Fellow contributor Darryl Smith greeted foot traffic while doing his best hocking of fresh-yet-vintage MCM apparel.
Drifting into the evening, autocross and thrill ride cars were ushered off the track for the real entertainment, a fleet of battered 1990s and 2000s Mopar minivans. Vice Grip Garage’s Vandemonium kicked off with Friday night qualifying, but not with racing.
Instead, an eight-foot inflatable ball got dumped into the middle of the oval, where two teams of five vans promptly went to war. The object was simple: shove, bump, ram, slide, and generally jostle the giant rubber meatball past a set of cones to rack up as many goals as possible before the clock ran out.
The team that scored the most would earn the better starting positions for Saturday’s festivities. Think demolition derby mixed with rec soccer that’s being refereed by a drunken kindergarten PE teacher. And that might not have even been the wildest sight of the night.
Allen Pezo of Predator monster truck fame followed the vans with the new-to-him Super Trike, a Hemi-powered three-wheeler. Built by Rich Cummings many years ago, its only mission in life has been to wheelstand and wheelstand it did as Allen piloted it all the way down the front stretch with the front fork high in the air. Another big-wheeler, Raminator, crushed the nightcap with a tall drink of car smashing that sent everyone home satisfied.
Saturday morning, action at the entry gates picked up a bit, no doubt because tales of the minivan battle had made their way all across the land. Dodge thrill rides started early, albeit without the Hellcat whine since this year’s cars were all 3.0L Hurricane-equipped.
Nonetheless, the six-cylinder’s 550 horsepower was enough to keep back wheels spinning as person after person got tossed around the new Charger’s plush interior. Unfortunately, two turbos’ worth of neutered whistle meant the cars were certainly powerful, but were they cool? Maybe not so much.
Steady racing at both the strip and the oval was augmented by a sizeable uptick in autocross attendees compared to years prior. No cone cruisers were a match for Eric Peachey who again took home most of the tin in his 2008 Dodge Viper, a known track terrorizer.
Slightly less intense but just as competitive was the new-for-2026 valve cover race. Kids of all ages (some a bit grey in the beard) stepped up to the Pinewood derby-esque plywood ramp for a bracket-style shootout amongst four-wheeled cylinder head toppers. Gotta be careful with those youths; one day they’re valve cover racing and the next they’re burning nitromethane at a 330-mph clip.
Prouder parents were probably in the grandstands for a perennial competition of Mopar manes – the mullet contest. It’s like hair with headers, a follicle freight train darn near guaranteed to make women want you and men want to be you. Honestly, we have no idea who won what whilst drowning in that flood of Kentucky waterfalls.
Car show winners, however, were plenty visible as champs from about fifteen classes made laps around the oval with their new hardware while burnout challenge and minivan race contestants queued up in the pits. Imagine the juxtaposing sight of an award-winning Hemi 1970 Dodge Coronet R/T crossing paths with Dylan McCool’s destitute 2016 Dodge Caravan as a herd of mullets marches through. Yep, only at MoParty.
Somehow, Vandemonium trumped all of that with a display of Dodge depravity not seen since they tried to cancel the Hemi. The only difference was that this debauchery was welcomed, cheered, and even flaunted as ten inadequate vans and their ten equally inadequate drivers made ten-ish hair-raising laps around the oval.
Without question, the cherry on top of MoParty 2026 was a procession of brake rotors all glowing cherry red after that many cycles of hard-on-the-gas and hard-on-the-brake. Crank my windows and call me a Plymouth Voyager, because I’m already planning next year’s journey to Bowling Green.
