From Middle School Gearheads to a Mission: The Story of Three Demons Performance

Josh Winters, Rob Bell, and Shane Pitt

How It Started: A Friendship Forged in Auto Shop

Long before there were superchargers and quarter-mile passes, there were three teenagers in Brunswick, MD who bonded over cars in a high school auto shop class. Josh Winters, Shane Pitt, and Rob Bell met in middle school and grew closer through high school, spending their afternoons working on their own vehicles: Josh had a Chevy, Rob had a Ford, and Shane ran a Mopar, a Plymouth. Their shop teacher, Mr. Williams, left a lasting impression on all three of them, along with the friend they call Mountain Man Dan.

Shane recalled being new to town at the time and struggling to make friends, until Rob welcomed him without hesitation. That early acceptance cemented a bond that would carry through decades apart. After graduation, the three went their separate ways for roughly two decades before reconnecting.

For Josh, that reconnection came through simply reaching back out to Shane after years apart. For Shane, the moment arrived almost out of nowhere: he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when Josh first got back in touch with him after 20-plus years of silence.

The Spark: A Heart Condition, an Early Retirement, and a Hammock

Shane's path back to his childhood friends was shaped by health. A heart condition forced him into early retirement after he sold his company. While relaxing in his front yard, he heard the announcement of the new Dodge Challenger Demon 170, a car he had loved since writing a school paper about the original Demon years earlier. He'd wanted a second-generation model too, but work travel made it impossible. When the third iteration arrived, he knew he wanted one, and encouraged by his wife, Cheryl, he reached out to Josh and Rob.

But for Shane, buying a Demon 170 just to own one wasn't enough justification. As he put it, the mission to help people was baked in from the very first real conversation the three of them had: he wanted the car, but he needed a reason bigger than himself to get it. That conversation, "how can we use them to help people?", is where 3 Demons Performance began.

What started as an idea for one car grew almost organically. Allocations were difficult to secure, but one Demon became two, then three, and eventually four sit in the garage today.

Rob remembers the exact moment it became real: sitting at dinner, Shane pulled out an iPad and said they were ordering the cars that night. Rob described it as a surreal callback to being car-obsessed kids who used to memorize spec pages from Car and Driver and Road & Track, and now, decades later, actually building around cars at that level.

Growing the Team: From Three to Six

What began as a trio evolved into a larger operation as trusted friends and family joined in:

• Brad Herrell: a friend and industry colleague of Shane's from the physical security world, Brad became the team's sales, marketing, and event coordinator. He didn't serve in the military himself, but said he'd always felt the pull to help those who did, describing his role as "I serve those who served."

  
  

• Dennis Collins: an Air Force veteran and Josh's father-in-law, Dennis started out hauling cars across the country and handling logistics before eventually becoming the lead driver of the second event car, Sinamon Stik.

  
  

• Nick Pepper: a former colleague of Josh's with a defense-contracting background, Nick became the operations coordinator, handling scheduling and logistics, self-described as "trying to wrangle in all the cats."

  
  

Each of them described a similar pull toward the mission: a longstanding personal connection to military life and a desire to give back in a tangible way.

The Cars

The team's fleet grew from an ambitious single allocation into four distinctly built Demons:

• Destroyer (Serial # 444): a stock, single-seat 170 in Destroyer Gray, one of only two built in that color as a single-seat configuration. It's outfitted with a Kirkey race seat in the passenger side for the veteran co-pilot program.

  
  

• Sinamon Stik (Serial # 446): a fully loaded, comfort-oriented 170 with heated and cooled seats, satin black accents, and carbon fiber wheels, driven by Dennis.

  
  

• Pitch Black (Serial # 448): a low-mileage asset car matching Shane's Hellcat Durango, largely kept in reserve.

  
  

• Go Mango (Serial # 810): a dealer-award allocation car and the team's dedicated race build. The team converted it from its factory supercharger to a twin-turbo setup, reportedly the first such conversion done on a Demon 170, in partnership with John Urist from Hellion Turbo, Jon and Jessica Sipple from Sipple’s Speed and Performance (8HP Transmissions), and tuner Tim Barth from Barth Performance and Tuning.

  
  

The team includes John Urist from Hellion Turbo, Jon and Jessica Sipple from Sipple’s Speed and Performance (8HP Transmissions), and tuner Tim Barth from Barth Performance and Tuning.

The Co-Pilot Experience: How the Program Works

The Veterans Co-Pilot Experience is the heart of what the team does, and it evolved through trial and error. Brad described the early events as rough, requiring constant after-action review, since there was no existing model to follow, no other organization doing quite what they were doing. The team had to build every part of the process themselves: how to run a safety briefing geared towards veterans, how to gather a crowd, how many helmets to bring, how to make the day feel complete rather than just a single high-speed run.

According to Brad, the run down the track is only a small part of the actual show. What matters just as much is the surrounding experience: food, camaraderie, a professionally produced video, and a lasting keepsake. The team created the "100 MPH Veterans Racing Club," giving each participant a framed certificate along with their timing slip from the run.

A signature touch is filming the passenger's reaction: a GoPro mounted on the windshield captures the veteran's face during the run, which the team then plays back on a big screen for the group immediately afterward.

How the Day Works

Josh laid out the typical flow of an event:

1. Veterans sign up and attend at no cost; the organization covers their track entry.

   
   

2. Attendees gather in what the team calls "the Demon corner" and fill out short info cards about their service and their lives today.

   
   

3. The team runs a safety briefing and provides all protective gear.

   
   

4. Track announcers read the veteran's info card aloud over the PA while they're in the car, and the moment is recorded on video.

   
   

5. After the run, everyone gathers to watch the reaction footage together.

   
   

Recruiting Veterans

Early on, finding participants meant making a lot of phone calls, many of which went unanswered. Over time, the team built partnerships with veteran-focused organizations, including Platoon 22, The Fallen Outdoors, and No Person Left Behind Outdoors, that could connect them with veterans directly. Their growing social media presence and reputation at tracks have also made recruitment easier, and now the team frequently pulls volunteers straight from the crowd at events.

One of the most memorable moments the team described involved an 85-year-old Navy veteran from the Vietnam era, brought to them in a wheelchair by his son. After a brief discussion about whether it fit within their usual program, the team decided to go for it. Dennis helped him into the car, and he received a standing ovation from the crowd as he pulled up to the water box after his Veterans Info Card was read by Mason Dixon Track announcer Mike Bassin.

Building Trust With Tracks

Brad described real early resistance from some track owners who saw the program as a liability risk. One prominent track owner initially refused to work with them until another track owner, a partner of the team's, helped make the introduction. That same skeptical owner later told Brad that the team's cars, being stock and equipped with airbags, air conditioning, and seat belts, were among the safest vehicles running on his track.

Lessons Learned

Asked what the experience has taught them personally, the team's answers centered less on the cars and more on connection:

• Shane said the biggest lesson wasn't about horsepower, but about peer-to-peer support: veterans who lived close to one another but had never met, now finding each other and staying connected long after an event ends.

• Josh described the program as restoring a sense of camaraderie he'd missed since leaving the Navy, and said the work has expanded his own involvement with veteran organizations, including joining the executive board of Platoon 22.

• Rob, who isn't a veteran himself but comes from a family with generations of military service, called it his way of giving back and said the team dynamic itself, watching everyone instinctively find a role at each event, has been one of the most rewarding parts.

  
  

• Dennis pointed to the friendships formed through the team and the emotional payoff of seeing veterans' reactions firsthand.

  
  

• Nick described feeling an immediate sense of belonging when he joined, comparing it to being welcomed into a "band of brothers," and said the need to serve the community again "comes as second nature."

  
  

• Brad said he's continually surprised by how guarded veterans can be beforehand and how quickly that changes after a run down the track: participants who arrive closed off often leave open, talkative, and eager to stick around and help.

Funding the Mission

The team operates as unpaid volunteers, funded in large part personally by Shane and his wife Cheryl, who have put their own retirement and savings behind the effort. Josh disclosed that Shane underwent a quadruple bypass surgery within the past year, a health scare the team weathered together, with Shane and Cheryl continuing to support the program from the sidelines even as Shane himself has not yet been medically cleared to ride in one of the cars.

Looking Ahead

Shane described plans to expand well beyond the current veteran-focused program, including future efforts to support children's programs and eventually open a shop offering low-cost or free vehicle work for Veterans, First Responders, and people with disabilities. The team says they have roughly five years of expansion plans already mapped out, with a continued focus on securing sponsorship to sustain and grow the mission.