'Dodge of the Dead" Motor Rally Passes Thru Woodbridge

Think clunkers. Real clunkers: a $500 (preferably cheaper) car held together with bailing wire and spit, 1,500 of roadways from New York to New Orleans, five days in the boneshakers, and a good cause.

Put it together, and you've got the 2012 BABE Rally (that's Big Apple to Big Easy to you neophytes), teams of a grand road adventure that passed its way through on the way to Staten Island Sunday. 

It was total Hooptie Heaven.

Matt "Crash" Podowitz and Neil "Burn" Feathers were one of the teams, dubbing themselves 'Team Two Horsemen of the Carpocalypse' (THOTC), as they motored into the area in a 1969 Dodge Dart Custom.

Dave Zatz of Allpar.com, the biggest Mopar - that's Dodge, Chrysler, Plymouth, Jeep, and other such cars - site on the Internet, offered to help the Two Horsemen with a tire and other items they might need to keep their clunker intact. Allpar.com is a proud sponsor of the Two Horsemen team.

Podowitz and Feathers, they said, spent a ton of time making their crate road-worthy. "Many hours have been spent to make it ready for the rally - brakes, two carburetor rebuilds, an ignition system rebuild, a fuel system rebuild and endless tweaking and adjustments," Podowitz said.

Why put so much effort into the rally each year? 

"It's an amazing amount of fun, and an opportunity to spend time with a unique group of auto enthusiasts,"  Podowitz said. His fellow Horseman, Feathers, added, "We also really like the idea of rescuing Mopars from backyards, barns and fields, giving them the road trip of a lifetime and then finding them a new home."

The team won't allow their rally cars to be crushed or sold for salvage, so they're doing their bit for the environment and spreading the Mopar love around.

But the real reason for the rally is charitable.  The team has gotten pledges for over $5,000 in donations for their favorite charities, the American Diabetes Association and the March of Dimes from family, friends, fans. and a growing number of sponsors. They've obtained pledges for over $2,000 in additional donations to its charities for the 2012 BABE Rally so far, they said.

Just in case this isn't fun enough, the guys also sometimes go along with a theme. This year's has a sort of Zombie Apocolypse motif: Dodge of the Dead. That meant dragging along a zombie mannequin for photo shoots during rally stops.

The guys have fun, and they take pictures, too. If you want to follow their exploits, visit their website which they regularly update. The rally runs through June 8.