When Dave Mendez picked up a stripped-down 2010 Dodge Challenger from Texas nearly a decade ago, he wasn’t picturing a twin-turbo Hemi, putting his foot down on 5,000 horsepower, or competing against the world’s top big-tire no-prep racers. He just had a shell of a streetcar with no engine and a wiring mess.

The project began as a simple build with a Gen III Hemi and a nitrous bottle. Mendez just wanted something fast, fun, and distinctly different. But in a tale as old as time, the gutted Dodge Challenger shell escalated into a full-blown race car with a Noonan 4.9-inch bore space Hemi engine and twin Precision 88mm turbos, running over 60 pounds of boost and backed with components from some of the top names in racing. And as fun as the bright and bold Mopar is to drive, the journey that got him here was equally as enjoyable. It’s a completely reimagined machine that’s been a passion project, at times a science experiment, and now, is a wild and truly legitimate no-prep contender.

“I bought the car in 2015 as a rolling chassis,” Mendez explains. “It didn’t have an engine, but it had a full interior and a mild steel six-point cage. I replaced that with a chromoly setup from RPM Rollbars and went racing with a 6.1L aluminum Hemi and nitrous. We were just having fun with it.” The early late model Dodge muscle cars are well known as heavyweights in factory trim, still weighing north of 4,000 pounds. This car sported its full factory features, but it was enough to feed Mendez’s rekindled interest in drag racing after stepping away to raise a family and build a career.

Dave’s automotive roots trace back to an ’82 Camaro IROC-Z and a teenage love of fast cars and faster weekends. “I’ve always enjoyed speed and the rush of racing. I’m a hands-on learner, self-taught with help from friends. I started with simple cam and head swaps and just kept going. Figuring out the best combination for a car is where the fun is,” he says.

Over time, the Challenger evolved. The plush factory interior gave way to lightweight carbon-fiber panels. The nitrous oxide power adder setup was swapped for a twin-turbo Gen III Hemi. With the help of Carl Stevens and Xtreme Racing Engines, Mendez had the car running consistently in the mid-eight-second range, but even that wasn’t enough. “We built a solid platform,” Mendez explains, “but then I ran across this used Noonan 4.9 Hemi that Carl had built. I didn’t even know what that motor was truly capable of; I just knew I had to try it.”

That decision changed everything. The car went back under the knife, and what began as a back-half job at Rob Mathis’ RPM Rollbars shop turned into a full tube chassis build. “Rob looked at it and said, ‘Keep cutting.’ So we did. Steel roof, quarters, that’s all that’s left. It became a ground-up racecar with a vision to grow with our need for speed.” They tore into the car during the peak of the COVID pandemic, spending late nights and weekends pushing through fabrication, wiring, and trial-and-error testing.

“Most of the adventure is the journey, building it with friends, solving problems, getting better. The actual racing is the bonus,” Mendez says. “When we started testing the Noonan combo, we had to upgrade just about everything to handle the power. Carl helped us understand what the motor could do, and Rob kept the fabrication on point. We broke things, we fixed things, and we learned like every other racer: by getting it wrong until we got it right.”

The result is one of the most distinctive machines in the sport: an oversized, stock dimension Challenger that still wears a VIN number and looks more like a muscle car than the purpose-built rocketship that it is. Dubbed “The Goblin” for its unpredictable attitude, the car sits taller and wider than most of the competition. “It’s been called a tugboat,” Mendez admits with a laugh. “It’s huge compared to most Pro Mods—12 to 16 inches taller, 6 to 10 inches wider, and with a 117-inch wheelbase. But people love it. It’s familiar. It looks like something they could own.”

Finished in a wild custom pearl Sublime green over a carbon-fiber front clip, doors, and Lexan windows, Mendez’s Dodge Challenger is impossible to miss. Its Race Star wheels, Hoosier slicks, and aggressive looks give away the seriousness of what’s underneath. The car sports a Rossler TH400 transmission with a Neal Chance billet converter and a Meziere billet flexplate. The power is transferred through a carbon-fiber PST driveshaft to a Mark Williams modular rearend.

Under the hood, everything is the real deal, with assembly by Xtreme Racing Engines: a dry sump oiling system with parts from Dan Olson, Auto Verdi, and Peterson. A boost-happy turbo system running through 5-inch hot-side and 3-inch cold-side piping. It’s managed by a MoTec ECU and tuned by Stevens, one of the top minds in the game. “It’s a ton of motor, and we’re still learning what it likes,” Mendez notes.

Their first outing with the new setup came at a Speed Promotions Racing event at Famoso Dragstrip in California. “We figured, why not?” Mendez recalls. “The car fits the spirit of the rules: steel roof and quarters, +/- 2 inches in wheelbase, and it still has a VIN. We took it to the first three races just to learn how it would handle a no-prep surface. It’s different than what we were used to, but we’re figuring it out.”

Mendez isn’t trying to prove anything to anyone, but he does hope to shake up some expectations people might have about the turbo combination in no-prep racing. “Most people think turbos don’t belong in no-prep racing. But I think with some patience, we can prove them wrong,” he says.

He built the car to run Top Sportsman, Pro Mod, Big Tire, and N/T classes, and its versatility is part of the appeal. But what he loves most is that the car still feels like a real street car, albeit one with four-digit power and an attitude problem. “The look of the car in street trim, with that color, is really unique. It gets attention wherever we go,” he explains. “It might be heavy, but it hangs with the lighter weight Pro Mods. People connect with it.”

There’s no telling what the Goblin Dodge Challenger will run when Mendez finally puts a number on the scoreboard. For now, it’s all about the process of testing, learning, tweaking, and racing. “We spent 16 months on the original tube chassis build, and we’re still improving it every race. It’s been a grind, but a rewarding one,” Mendez explains. “It’s a car built with friends, with sweat and mistakes and a lot of laughs. That’s what makes it special.”

And in a sport full of carbon-copy race cars chasing numbers, maybe that’s exactly the kind of story drag racing needs more of.