Nebraskans take chop-topped former church van on crazy, 3,500-mile ride

The Ford Econoline had always been put to righteous use.

In its first two dozen years, it performed 130,000 miles of community service — first for the Salvation Army of St. Louis and, later, a Lutheran church and school in northeast Missouri.

But after the accident, it was a changed van.

Because when it hit the road again this spring — after it was liberated from an auction lot with a $600 bid — it had a Jagermeister dispenser mounted to its floor, a disco ball bouncing overhead and a new name: Van-Tastic.

It embarked on a meandering mission in late March, stalking the Wienermobile in Cincinnati, visiting Little Richard’s grave in northern Alabama, rolling past Wrigley Field. It posed for photos, attracted cops, logged 3,500 miles in seven states.

And it did it all topless, piloted by three wind-blown Nebraskans competing for the first time in the Chop Top Challenge, an annual cross-country scavenger hunt in DIY convertibles.

Team Van-Tastic wasn’t racing the other half-dozen teams on this year’s route from Chicago to New Orleans; there is no prize for finishing first, and speeding is discouraged.

Instead, the teams were completing a series of challenges and collecting points: 200 for doing a burnout, for instance, or 300 for ridiculing a Cybertruck, 400 for painting your choppy along the way, 1,000 for getting a tattoo.

Over the course of four days, the Nebraskans talked strangers into giving their cameras a “Hell yeah, Brother.” They threw a banana at a moving competitor. They had Van-Tastic valet parked. They paid their respects to Col. Sanders and Johnny Appleseed and visited Churchill Downs. They did not get tattoos.

In all, they completed about 40 challenges, not nearly enough to keep pace with the top two teams.

And they were cool with that, at first. They were having a blast.

“I had zero expectation of winning it,” said Brad Sharp of Lincoln, who had bought the van, peeled off its top and talked a pair of friends into joining him on the road. “I was really just looking forward to the adventure.”

But on the last morning, as they were rolling toward New Orleans in their former church van, he came up with a Hail Mary.

***

The Chop Top Challenge started more than a decade ago, with a spring break road trip.

A Michigan schoolteacher and his brother climbed into an ’89 Honda CR-X without a roof or windshield — now known as the OG Choppy — for a trip to Miami and back.

“And the following year, they decided, ‘Hey, that was dumb and fun at the same time.’ And they have a lot of dumb friends, so they decided to try to convince their dumb friends to join them,” said Phong Nguyen, one of those friends.

The brothers created the Chop Top Challenge as part road rally, part scavenger hunt. Nguyen’s team won that inaugural event.

The rules are straightforward: You have to chop the top from a car that was never offered as a convertible. And you must lose the windshield, too.

It’s tougher than it sounds, Nguyen said. March in the Midwest is unpredictable, and teams have faced snow and rain and bone-chilling cold from the road wind. Which is why they wear full-face helmets and some pack snowmobile suits.

“You’re not used to being open to the elements in a car. You’re thinking, you know, a sweater or a hoodie and you’ll be fine. That’s not the case. It’s terrible if you’re not fully geared up.”

On the first of the four days, the Chop Top Council hands out a list of nearly 400 challenges and tasks, largely organized by city. It encourages long hauls; the farther the challenge is from the most direct route, the higher the payoff.

The council also issues challenges not tied to the route. Haul a full-size piano from start to finish: 1,500 points. Drive through a car wash: 500. Chase a tornado: 300. One year, they awarded points for a marriage proposal.

All this with little tangible reward waiting at the finish line. Last year, they gave the winner a second-hand motocross trophy. This year, teams were jockeying for a WWE-style title belt.

But that’s not why so many of the same teams return, Nguyen said. They’re drawn back by the shenanigans — and the camaraderie.

“They heard that it was something crazy to do. And they did it, and they had fun, and they come back.”

***

Brad Sharp had never heard of the challenge. But he is a veteran of its country cousin, the Gambler 500.

In those rolling parties, teams run improbable and impractical cars — ideally $500 cars — over 500 miles of dirt and gravel roads, navigating waypoints and picking up trash.

“The mantra of it is, the less capable the car going down these sketchy back roads, the more fun it’s going to be,” Sharp said.

Over the course of 15 Gambler events in three states, Sharp has made friends who share his ideas of fun. And one of them called from Iowa in February, pitching the idea of the Chop Top Challenge.

Wouldn’t it be cool, his friend said, if they both built cars and caravaned to Chicago?

Sharp didn’t have much time to get ready; the challenge was just weeks away.

The 63-year-old is retired from the military, and buys, fixes and sells cars to keep busy. He started thinking about the possibilities he had parked at a friend’s farmstead near Beatrice.

His Charger with a Hemi? It would be fast, but worth too much to cut up. The Volvo wagon he runs in the Gambler? It was already missing part of its top, but would it survive a long trip?

He scrolled through an online auto auction and spotted the crumpled church van. He learned it had landed on its passenger side in December, but that didn’t deter Sharp.

“A lot of the windows were already broken, and the roof was dented. So to me, that made sense: Start with a car that’s already halfway there.”

He researched the engine and transmission, learned 2002 wasn’t a bad year for the driveline. Another plus? The 19-foot van would be big enough to haul everything — and everyone — needed to complete the challenge.

Sharp bought the van, drove it home from Des Moines and, with help from friend Joel Wilgers, got to work in rural Gage County.

Their first job? Turn it into a choppy. They cut the pillars between the windows, chained the roof to a farmyard oak, got behind the wheel and gunned it. The roof bounced to the ground.

But that left nearly 40 feet of rough edge. They considered covering it with pool noodles or rain gutters. Instead, Sharp bought enough new exhaust pipes for a smooth, solid rail. Wilgers welded a roll cage to protect Team Van-Tastic, and they were done with safety measures.

The Chop Top Council awards style points, so Sharp and Wilgers installed a working hot dog cooker in the back, near a working Jagermeister dispenser. A timeclock under the dash would keep track of their time on the road.

Then they lit it all up with pencil strobes, light whips and a disco ball.

And as a final touch, Sharp grafted on a fake fuel-filler neck and stuck in a nozzle and hose — as if he’d driven away from a gas station and yanked it off the pump.

In late March, after spending about $3,000 on Van-Tastic’s transformation, Sharp and his team — two more friends he met at Gambler events — headed east.

***

The three Nebraskans got used to cars passing, then slowing, then taking photos. Strangers approached them in parking lots.

“They couldn’t wrap their minds around the fact we’re in a van with no roof,” said Austin Fricke of Lincoln. “They were like, ‘No way you drove it that far.’”

They were stopped twice by cops in Arkansas, fooled by Sharp’s gas pump gag. They convinced one to record a “Heck yeah, Brother.”

Casey Coker Jarvis was on Chattanooga’s Broad Street when she found herself behind a topless van dragging a gas hose.

“I saw these guys wearing helmets. And I thought: ‘Those guys are having fun. Who are they and why is their van like that?’”

She and Van-Tastic were headed to the same place: The Coker Museum, where she’s executive director. When the Nebraskans piled out for a quick parking lot photo (50 points), she invited them in for a look at the museum’s vintage vehicles.

Her father owned Coker Tire, a vintage wheel and tire supplier, so she grew up with head-turners. But Van-Tastic stood out.

“We’ve driven across the country in crazy cars and gotten a lot of attention, but nothing like that. I love that they were out there having fun.”

They were. The team’s third member, Tony Corbin, an over-the-road trucker from the Sandhills, drives to Florida weekly but rarely gets to stop and explore along the way. The challenge introduced him to some of the cities he knew only through the windshield of his semi.

“There’s a lot of the places we went that I’ve been in before, but I never really got a chance to look around. So for me, it was kind of a sightseeing adventure.”

They were chasing points, consolidating challenges where they could. At the Hard Rock Casino in Cincinnati, they valet parked the van (400 points), lost $50 gambling (400) and slept in the parking lot (200).

But they weren’t keeping up. The points leaders were running away from the competition, committing to the tattoos and the car wash and driving through the night (bagging five challenges in Atlanta between 2 and 4 a.m.).

“Being a first-year team, we didn’t know how important that was,” Sharp said. “We slept way too much.”

Team Van-Tastic, though, had a secret weapon.

On the first day, Sharp won a challenge coin in a dice game with a challenge organizer. It was worth 1,000 points at the finish — or the power to challenge another team to a wager for the coin plus additional points.

The Nebraskans had intended to keep the coin and redeem the points. But when Sharp realized even that wouldn’t nudge them out of fourth place, he contacted Beater Circus, the fifth-place team.

Nothing in the event’s fine print limited the number of points he could wager with the coin, so he made a proposal:

One game of rock, paper, scissors. Winner takes all the points from the other team.

Sharp showed paper. Beater Circus showed rock.

At the awards ceremony, the previous leaders were blindsided by Van-Tastic’s unexpected and unprecedented victory. But the Chop Top Council was stoked with the high-stakes shenanigans. And they sent Team Van-Tastic and their former church van back to Nebraska with the title belt.

“We think that was almost perfect,” Nguyen said. “They did everything within the rules, within the spirit of the event. It was an amazing twist.”

Van-Tastic’s service wasn’t finished. It participated in last week’s Boys Town senior send-off parade, and will spend the summer performing less serious duties: Sharp plans to drive it in Gambler 500 events in Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa.

And then, next March, it will carry its crew to the starting line of the 2027 Chop Top Challenge — this time with a target on its back.