"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.
"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.
"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.
"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.
"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.
The 1980s had their own special flavor here in the United States and thanks to this Argentinian Ford Truck commercial from 1981 showing off the new F-100, F-150 and F-250 – we can see that the marketing approach for the F Series pickup was just as awesome outside of the U.S. in the ’80s. This […] More »
This week’s video features what I believe could be the Truckin’ Fastest Ford F-150 I have ever seen. This F-150 has been built by Ida Automotive specifically for the purpose of attacking the Bonneville Salt Flats in an effort to go over 200 miles per hour with a full size pickup truck. Fittingly, the team […] More »
This week’s Tire Shredding video features a Ford F-150 Raptor packing a fully built 5.4L V8 and a supercharger. While we typically associate burnouts with on-road performance and when it comes to SVT on-road pickups, we tend to think about the supercharged Lightning that is more than a decade out of production rather than the […] More »
While a great many of the trucks competing in pulling events are super modified heavy duty pickups like the PowerStroked Super Duty, this week’s new Truck Off segment features what I believe to be a stock Ford F-150 EcoBoost pickup hooked to the sled. There is almost no information on the F-150 in question, but considering […] More »
Twenty years ago, the vast majority of Ford F-150 pickups would have come with 15 or 16 inch wheels and high performance models like the mighty Lightning got 17 inch wheels for improved handling. Fast forward to the 2015 F-150 and youll find the smallest wheels to measure 17 inches while the standard wheels on […] More »
When you watch any modern automotive television commercial, you generally have a very professional and usually deep voiced narrator talking about the car or truck featured in said commercial. Today’s Throwback piece reminds us of how strange the 90s were with help from a 1992 Ford F-150 commercial. With guys like Mike Rowe and Denis […] More »
This week’s Truckin’ Fast video features a Ford SVT Raptor F-150 charging over a decent sized jump with camera angles both inside and outside of the truck. This is important, as a lovely young lady named Giselle is riding shotgun in this high performance F-150 and we get to watch her – um – reaction […] More »