Subscribe to the Challenger of the Day Newsletter
Every Day Brings New Challengers. At Least That's How I Heard It!
I am drawn to those with Challenges. I always have been. I have had severely debilitating migraines most of my life and I always identified with others who were special. Everyone has there own challenges it's just not always so easy to notice. I see in others what makes us similar. Everyone is special. When we focus on what we have in common our differences fade into the background.
My first Muscle Car was a light blue 66 & 1/2 Charger I rode in the back of as a three year old. I remember looking out the big rear window and steering with my hands as the world pulled away from me. I thought I was driving. I remember so much from when I was a kid like it was just yesterday. I live everyday with a smile now. I am blessed with so much. When I was four years old someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I replied ‘The happiest person in the world’. I love life and appreciate how fortunate I am. I have been able to make a lot of people smile and made some really great friends as a result of the connection to a shared passion. Not just for Die cast cars & Muscle Cars but for the secret power they represent. The power to make people smile!
In May of 2011 I made the decision to purchase a Dodge Challenger. I had lost my Dad and my Father-in-law within a few years of each other and life just seemed too short. So I fell into the driver’s seat of my Billet Silver Metallic Challenger R/T. 1 of only 9 made with the Classic package, Super Track Pak and factory hood to fender stripes. A lifelong dream came true that summer. I was making myself and other people smile. I was on top of the world!
I injured myself requiring spinal surgery at the end of 2011. It was six months after I had purchased my 2011 Dodge Challenger. Pieces of a disc were embedded in my spinal cord and I was told I would be a quadriplegic on a ventilator if I did not approve a Fusion surgery. I could not say no and the surgeon replaced my bad disc with a donor bone. Someone who I never met had become an organ donor and now was a part of me. I knew I would forever stand for the Unknown Fallen. I became involved with Donate Life New York State and I always ask others to do as I have and become an organ donor. Because you never know who around you is already a recipient and there is no greater gift a person can give in this world. It is the gift of a Lifetime.
I had two more surgeries, including one more donor bone, by the summer of 2014. I spent many months in and out of a neck brace and started a small collection of die cast Challengers. When packages began showing up daily my wife asked me what was going on. I told her, half jokingly, that I had joined a club and it was the 'Challenger of the day' club and they would deliver a new Challenger for every day of the year. I knew she didn’t even half-believe me. But she put up with me. Shortly after, I began to realize the joy of opening and taking out of the package a new die cast car every day. Some of them were over twenty years old and still in the package waiting to be released by one person. One lucky person – Me!
Hey, a little Challenger never hurt nobody!
I started a blog called Every Day Brings New Challengers, at ChallengeroftheDay.com, solely for the purpose of sharing what brings great joy to me. I wanted to take and post a picture of a Challenger every day, each time I opened one actually, and share some of the smiles that it brought to me with the world. Throughout the years I had a lot of days where I needed a smile and Challengers always came through for me. Now I have close to one thousand little Challengers. Joy is all I ever feel when I open a new die cast or sit or drive in mine, or even just stare at any scale version. Every day has become a Challenger Convention. I love taking photos of full size cars and the scaled down models. I try to capture the essence of the cars I am photographing and share the joy I feel. My goal is to make people smile and as happy looking at the pictures as I am taking them. Challenger of the Day is one of my 'vehicles' to make it happen and now I feature other Challenger owners and what makes them smile too! In September of 2019 I upgraded to a 2019 Dodge Challenger R/T Scat Pack and I am smiling more than ever!
Every day brings new Challengers. At least that's how I heard it!
There is so much negative in all of the media, I think people need positive more than ever. So one of my dream goals is to make a ‘Self Replicating Smile Generator’ for the world. Using photos I love taking in an effort to share a pure feeling of joy. Everyone has his or her own daily challenges. At the end of the day I only count my blessings. Size is a matter of perspective and perspective is adjustable. The scope of any problem can always be made better with perspective. Life is not about having the best of everything it’s about making the best of everything you have.
I face my own daily challenges with little Challengers and it’s worked better for me than any medicine or therapy. I need to smile every day and it is not often easy to do. So, I'm doing it for me as well as for others. If you can't smile for yourself you have to try to smile for the ones you love. Despite the challenges I am still aware that, at times, I have 'favor'. I know I am meant to share it and help people I don’t know feel better. I view life from an adjustable perspective. I am blessed to be alive and I believe I am here for a reason and a higher purpose. I know part of it is to make the World smile - one soul at a time. Every smile lessens the sum total of suffering in the world.
Please watch the Challenger Joe Interviews on Good Day Rochester!
The latest from the Challenger of the Day blog.
The Beest
Challenger of the Day
It is a great pleasure to share with you the Featured Challenger of the Day: The Beest & Nita Wade!!! We love sharing smiles at ChallengeroftheDay.com and The Beest and Nita are both Smile Machines!!! Please Follow Nita at the links below the photos and Smile!!!
I bought The Beest 3.5 years ago. I had just purchased a beautiful brand new (but boring) Rav4, and for some reason started looking around for something a little more exciting. I'm a 63-year-old female, and fast cars, modified cars, racing is in my blood (genetically) but unlike my brother (who had a Viper and multiple Mopars his whole life), I never fully embraced it. Oh, I always modified my cars a bit, added the sports package in both brand-new Toyotas I bought, but that's about it. I was always sensible. Lol. When my brother heard I was looking for something, he immediately started hunting for a yellow Challenger because he knew I had a thing for yellow cars, and HE was a Mopar fanatic. I didn't really care one way or the other...Until I saw that car on the dealership website, and my whole life changed.
Since I bought that car, it went from being 'a beast' to him being The Beest. He became a living thing, and I started making little changes, which turned into huge changes. My vision for what The Beest would become has pretty much stayed consistent. I wanted him to be a car that, when he drove by you, you snapped your head and did a double take. If he pulled into a parking lot, folks walking by would stop and stare. If he went to a car show, people took notice. He's done all these things and so much more. The feeling I get when other car owners come over and start noticing all the little details, when they drool over how he sounds, gushing over this car I've poured my heart and soul into, is unbelievably rewarding. And the kids! To them this car is an immediate magnet. No, it's not a Camaro, but many still say 'Bumblebee' And gravitate to it... Wanting to touch it and get inside. And I let them. After all, it's still 'just a car'. Fingerprints wipe off, and if I can make their day by letting them sit in my driver seat? That car show was successful, and My day is complete. There's nothing better.
more
Norm Jr aka Lee
Challenger Joe and Friends!!!
My friends Joey, Barry and I would sit at the bus stop and watch the cars pass by. We lived in The Bronx, home to the busiest street in the country, and in the late seventies we saw every kind of muscle car and every car ever made for that matter. Dodges were always among our favorites and as ten year olds we already knew who Mr.Norm was!!!
I was so excited to have the chance to interview Norm Jr., aka Lee Kraus, and talk about his Tribute Challenger for his legendary dad Mr. Norm. We had a great conversation and he shared his perspective about what it was like being a kid at the Most Famous Dodge Dealership in the world. He shared a lot more than that! We really hit it off and spoke for over an hour about everything from classic muscle cars to the current state of affairs for the car industry. I was looking for a little background to drive this story and drove away with a great friend. Thank you very much Lee (aka Norm Jr) for taking that ride with me!!!
It is with great pleasure that I present Mr Norm’s son Lee Kraus, aka Norm Jr., and his Amazing Tribute Challenger!!!
1) Growing up with your dad, did you ever feel like a kid inside a candy store?
more
Far Out
Challenger of the Day
There are about 300 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy and 4000 Solar Planetary Systems. Some stars shine brighter than others and Katsuya Tamaki's photographs are really out of this world. It is with Great Joy that I present these Far Out Challengers!!!
"I live in Nagano Prefecture, Japan, and there are many mountains around. So I'm doing some tuning so that I can drive comfortably on the mountain pass. In Japan, this car has been featured in magazines many times. I also have an old 1973 Challenger. Also ram van and Grand Cherokee are unified in blue".
more
S1NYSTR
Challenger of the Day
This sinisiter Challenger is an awesome build that was first contemplated back in the early seventies! Check out John Cimino's Scat Pack Shaker Story:
Just love the journey with this car. I grew up in Newark NJ and a friend of mine had a 1973 Challenger with a 318 and 3 speed. As a teenager we cruised in that car until the wheels fell off. I swore that one day I would own a Challenger of my own. Well that day came and I bought this car as a Basic Black Scat Pack and just kept adding to it to make it my own. All red carbon fiber accents. Painted the SHAKER in Redline Pearlcoat. All engine accents from American Brother Designs. Oil Catch can from Billet Technologies. Borla Atak Exhaust. Marquee Red/Black Rims. 275/40/20 Cooper Tires. Barton Shifter. Custom Splitter from Downforce Solutions. Tiger Stripe Taillights from Luxe Auto and the list goes on. This is my daily driver with 84,000 miles on it. If you have something you enjoy you should use it! I still look back to admire it every time I park.
Check out more photos on Instagram s1nystr2016 and on Facebook John Cimino and Follow That Challenger!!
more
Rubyred
Challenger of the Day
This Awesome Cuda Tribute by Ruby Guerrero Workman is definitely a labor of love! Dedicated to her mom, Maria Romero Guerrero, it is a great modern rendition of the original Cuda. Now a word from the proud owner:
“This is my beautiful beast Rubyred. When I was a kid, my mom had a red ’71 Cuda and it’s what started my obsession with muscle cars! When my mom became ill with Cancer, I looked around for a Cuda I could restore but my budget wasn't great. I bought Rubyred and decided to do a total conversion Cuda kit for my mom. She passed away four months after I bought her. So it became a project in memory of her. I know she’s grinning ear to ear even though she never saw it completed. I'm still doing things to her but I love her to pieces. Even if don't win I hope people appreciate my love of muscle cars and the labor of love I took on!”
Ruby has a contagious passion for Challengers and is also the creator of the Facebook Group Dodge Challenger Owners & proud of it! ;). Check out the group and click here to connect with Ruby on Facebook and Instagram too!
more