Although the old adage that muscle cars can’t take corners was put to bed many years ago thanks in part to the Pro Touring trend, there’s something special about builds that incorporate this modernized performance without losing sight of the car’s original charm. Although that balance can be difficult to quantify, cars like David Kruk’s MoParty 2024 Grand Champion-winning 1970 Dodge Super Bee seem to embody the vibe.

As a technician for Leading Edge Automotive, a classic car restoration shop in Elkhart, Indiana, Kruk’s day job puts a lot of iconic Detroit muscle within arm’s reach, but he tells us that his interest in hot rodding developed out of an interest in an unlikely marque.

“I grew up around Studebakers – my first car was a 1964 Studebaker Lark. These cars are popular in the area because Studebaker’s plant was in South Bend, Indiana, which is really close to where I live. Because of that, there are also a lot of Studebaker swap meets, and at those swap meets there were a lot of Mopars and Chevys, too. That really helped expand my world when it came to vintage cars.”

While working on his first major restoration – a 1970 Chevrolet C10 pickup – Kruk was on the hunt for some parts for the project when he made a serendipitous discovery.

“I had a ‘parts wanted’ ad on Craigslist, and this guy responded who had what I was looking for,” he recalls. “When I got to this guy’s house, I noticed that he had these B-Body Mopar parts cars lined up on the fence that he was getting ready to bring to the junkyard. I asked him about two of them – a ’68 Dodge Super Bee and a ’69 Plymouth Road Runner. He said, ‘You can have either one of them for $400.’ Although the Road Runner was more complete, the bare-bones Super Bee was relatively rust-free, so I picked the Super Bee. And that’s how the whole Mopar thing started for me.”

While in the process of bringing the ’68 Plymouth back to life, a friend tipped Kruk off to another local B-Body Mopar that could potentially serve as a donor car for the project: A 1970 Dodge Super Bee. Although the car had been sitting in a barn for roughly two decades and had clearly been the recipient of some questionable repair work at some point, Kruk soon concluded that the car was simply too nice to part out.

“It was rattle-canned black and had a fender that was a different color, but there was very little rust and the interior was in pretty good shape. And when we took it home and primed the oil system, the 440 fired right up,” he says. “So I ended up selling the ’68 to my brother and focusing on this one instead.”

The effort to get the ’70 Super Bee back on the road began in earnest in 2010. Fresh out of high school, Kruk says that limited funds equated to a car that was a hodge-podge of components that included sprint car wheels and tires and a notoriously ill-tempered radiator, but it eventually evolved into a more comprehensive restoration project.

“Originally I just wanted to fix it up and make it a fun cruiser, and for about three years, that’s pretty much what it was,” he says. “We got the 440 running right and put a Holley throttle body EFI kit on it, then we took care of the rust that was on it, painted it, and assembled it in my friend’s garage.”

Kruk got his first taste of organized competition when some friends invited him out to the drag strip about a year later, but he says that a karting event at GingerMan Raceway in South Haven, Michigan is what really inspired the direction that the build would ultimately take.

“I realized that I really loved turning corners. Later on, I was talking to my friend Scott about it. He works for Motor State Distributing, and he told me about this event they do called the Motor State Challenge, which is this huge competition for pro touring builds. At the time I didn’t even know what pro touring was! I was blown away by what I saw there.”

Inspired by the capability of the cars at the event, Kruk shifted his focus to the ’70 Super Bee’s chassis, outfitting it with QA1 suspension components. He also treated the 440ci V8 to a stroker kit that brought its displacement up to 512 cubes and outfitted the three-speed automatic transmission with a manual valve body, but nagging issues eventually led him to change tack.

Shop Mopar Hemi Gen III swap kits here.

“We just couldn’t keep that engine cool – it kept overheating. Eventually, we were at an event I had two problems: a leaky valve cover and broken water pump. Nobody had a valve cover gasket or a water pump for a 440, and the whole situation was really frustrating for me. Not long after that, I was looking around on Facebook Marketplace and found this ad for a 6.4-liter V8 and an 8-speed transmission that had been pulled out of a 2018 Dodge Challenger R/T Scat Pack. A lot of my friends are really big on the LS swap stuff, and this was around the time that Holley started offering a lot of Gen III Hemi swap parts, so I had already been thinking about it. I called the guy up, struck a deal, and all of a sudden I was doing a Gen III Hemi swap!”

Early teething issues with the transplant led to Kruk swapping out the factory pistons for a set of aftermarket pieces, and after two years of relatively trouble-free operation, he ended up nuking one of the replacement slugs during the 2023 Motor State Challenge.

“I think it was a mixture of bad fuel, a bad sensor, and just pushing the car really hard,” he says. “I was on the road course at Gingerman making a pass, and I suddenly heard this pop. The car nose-dived, and I looked in the rear view and there was smoke billowing out. Back in the pits I found oil all over the engine bay, and the breathers and PCV valves were full of oil, so we knew what had happened. We had driven the car to the track that day since that’s a requirement of the class, so we had to limp it all the way back home.”

With MoParty 2023 fast approaching, Kruk put up a post on Facebook lamenting the engine’s untimely demise and the assumption that he wouldn’t make it to the Holley event.

“That’s when my neighbor reached out and said that he happened to have a 6.4-liter Hemi that he was planning to put into a ’69 Dart,” he explains. “And he said, ‘you can borrow my motor if you want – just help me put it my Dart when you’re done with it. So we swapped the motors, went down to MoParty, and I managed to blow that one up at MoParty as well.”

Fortunately a new set of drop-in pistons and a sorted-out tune appear to have finally gotten the Super Bee in a good place, as evidenced by the success he’s had in competition this year.

The powertrain setup currently consists of a largely-stock modern 6.4-liter Hemi V8, along with the aforementioned 8-speed automatic transmission and an 8 ¾ rear end with a Moser center section and 3.23 gears. A Holley Terminator X Max EFI system is paired with a standalone transmission controller from Sound German Automotive to keep the modern hardware in check.

On the chassis front, the Super Bee now sports QA1 coilover suspension system up front, while the rear pairs double-adjustable coilovers with Hotchkis leaf springs. Stopping power is provided by six-piston Wilwood brakes at all four corners.

“We also did quite a bit of stiffening to car,” he notes. “We stitch-welded a lot of the body panels, and we have the US Car Tool stiffening kit all over the car – frame rails, fender skirts, torque box. Anywhere I could stiffen it, I did.”

Inside, a 12.3-inch Holley digital dash provides information on the Dodge's vitals and a harness bar provides a proper mounting point for the RaceQuip belts, while a Flaming River tilt steering column and modern Challenger Scat Pack seats improve the ergonomics.

“I wanted to modernize it without removing too much of the original car because, at some point, it’s like, ‘Well, why didn’t I just buy a modern car?’” he says with a laugh. “But at the same time, these drive-and-race events require you to spend a lot of time in the car, so some things needed to change. We used to have race seats in the car, but the car spends so much time on the road that we switched to the Challenger seats for the sake of comfort.”

18-inch US Mags provide room for the Super Bee’s big brake kit and allow Kruk to run modern 275mm-wide track-focused performance tires. But aside from a repurposed front splitter from a ’69 Camaro, the exterior looks largely stock. “The color isn’t Lemon Twist, though,” he points out. “It’s actually Pearl Yellow Tricoat, a paint color that Lexus used on the LFA supercar.”

Kruk says that while the car’s setup has become increasingly competition focused in recent years, his success at this year’s Motor State Challenge (where he took home the Vintage class title) and MoParty came as a total surprise.

Shop Mopar Hemi Gen III swap kits here.

“Those are the two events that I always go to every year, and my favorite thing about these events is that people can ride along with you in the car during your runs,” he says. “That allows folks with more experience to provide some insight to newer drivers and help them get up to speed, and it also really helps create this sense of community. Everyone wants everyone else to do well. I hopped in Dylan McCool’s car and gave him some pointers, and [overall MoParty Grand Champion] Eric Peachey rode with me on some runs and gave me some pointers. Honestly, I really had no expectations that the car was going to be competitive at MoParty – my plan at this year’s event was to just has some fun and see my friends.”

Comprised of autocross, drag racing, and the 3S Challenge – the latter of which combines elements of autocross and speed-stop into a single, high-intensity test – the Grand Champion competition favors cars with a balanced performance skill set rather than those that have been purpose-built to dominate in one specific racing discipline.

“During the autocross portion, I took it easy initially. I just focused on learning the track, and I took a few people on ride-alongs before setting some times. At a certain point I looked up at the scoreboard and I was suddenly in the lead. But at the drag strip I was actually slower this year; last year I ran an 11.8, and this year my fastest run was a 12.4. I think I was afraid of blowing up another motor! The 3S Challenge is my favorite, though. I’m kind of known for being one of those folks that gets their car sideways through a lot of the corners of the course, but this year I didn’t do a lot of sliding. Optima has a very similar element in the Street Car Challenge, so I’ve gotten pretty familiar with how it works. We also got so many runs at MoParty that I just set a time I was happy with and then kind of threw the car around in subsequent runs to see if it would stick. By that segment of the event I realized I was placing pretty well, so I started swinging for the fences.”

“The car’s starting to rust on the frame rails, so we’re going to be replacing the front clip with a Speedtech Extreme Kit and ditching the leaf springs for a torque arm rear suspension. That will allow me to fit a 335mm-wide tire under the car at the front and rear, but we’ll probably end up running a 315 just because those are a little cheaper and easier to get. Either way that should really bump up the grip.”

As for the events he’ll be doing next season, he says that MoParty and Motor State Challenge are a given, but he’d also like to expand his horizons a little further. “I’d like to start hitting some bucket list tracks like Daytona, Indianapolis, and Laguna Seca. I’d also really like to do the One Lap of America event. I’ll probably spend a lot of next year re-learning the car with the new setup, but the goal is to run it the year after that.”