Roadkill Nights by Dodge Introduces Racer Application Program

A few weeks back we brought you the news that for the second year in a row, Dodge will sponsor legal street racing on Detroit’s Woodward Ave as part of the Roadkill Nights automotive festival and to help make this year the best ever, racers who want to participate have to fill out an application and be chosen by the Roadkill crew – and I think that it is a great move.

2017 marks the 3rd straight year where the Metro Detroit area will play host to a Roadkill Nights event and for the 2nd straight year, the Detroit Roadkill event will include legal street racing on the famous Woodward Avenue. When the 2017 Roadkill Nights by Dodge event information was announced a few weeks back, we learned that for the first time, the Detroit Roadkill event will not be free to spectators. Roadkill 2017 will take place at the M1 Concourse once again and this year, the event will take place the weekend before the Woodward Dream Cruise – kicking off the week-long festival that is the Dream Cruise. It sounds as though Roadkill Detroit will be bigger and better than last year, but we didn’t learn anything about racer registration.

For weeks, people have been writing me, asking about racer registration for the 2017 Roadkill Nights by Dodge event in Detroit and those details are finally available – although signing up for Roadkill 2017 is very different than it has been in the past years.

Racing at Roadkill Detroit 2017
When Roadkill Night was introduced back in August of 2015, it was free to race or show or do anything else and racer registration was based on a first come, first serve basis. It was awesome that the racing was free, but that brought out some vehicles which had no business drag racing. Cars and SUVs which would struggle to get down a real quarter mile in less than 20 seconds littered the field, while real racer were turned away when the designated number of spots had been filled.

To address this, the 2016 Roadkill Detroit event charged $50 for basic racer registration, which cut down on the number of vehicles which have no business racing, but it was still based on a first come, first serve basis. Even with the $50 racer entry fee, there were quite a few factory stock-and-very slow cars which signed up to race, once again taking racing spots away from far more exciting vehicles. I mean, I’m sure that the person with the stock V6 Grand Cherokee had fun, but no one had fun watching it run against a 9-second Mustang.

So, for 2017, the racer registration details for Roadkill Detroit have once again changed. The cost of entry has risen to $100 and, more importantly, all interested racers have to fill out an application – it is no longer first come, first serve. Instead, prospective Roadkill racers have to provide information about their racing experience, the performance times and modifications made to their cars, how often they race right now, whether or not they have health insurance (seriously) and whether or not they are comfortable racing on a “semi or unprepped surface”. Racers have to provide pictures of their vehicle, as well.

This application process for Roadkill racer entry runs through the 26th and once it closes, the folks from Roadkill will hand pick the vehicles which will be accepted to race on Woodward.

Upsides and Downsides to this Approach
As is the case with pretty much anything, there are upsides and downsides to this application process for the 2017 Roadkill Nights by Dodge event, although there are really only upsides to those people who aren’t planning to race.

The key downside to this is that those folks who have raced in the past Roadkill events with cars that run in the 11s might miss out if there is a big enough field of fast entries. In past years, those guys with cars in that range who were on the ball were able to sign up by being ready to do so as soon as registration opened. It is unclear what kind of selection process will be used, but it seems likely that with limited racing spots, there won’t be many stock vehicles of any kind in the field.

The key upside to the Roadkill application process is that spectators won’t have to watch stock, low performance vehicles driven by people who have never done any racing in the past. By removing the first come, first serve basis, the Roadkill team will be able to pack the field with cars and drivers who the spectators will want to watch race – although it could mean that some folks who have run well in past years will not be included.

Big Money for Everyone
In past years, there was a big prize for the winner of the Top Dodge class with a much smaller prize for the winner of the non-Dodge class. This year, there is a $10,000 cash prize for the Dodge winner and the non-Dodge winner, and if the overall event winner is a Dodge – the driver will race away with $20,000.

Also, there will be prizes for 2nd, 3rd and 4th place overall, with the runner up taking home $5,000, 3rd place getting $2,500 and 4th place getting $1,500.

If you want to sign up, you can do so for five more days by clicking here.