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I am extremely saddened to have to announce that we lost a great man, devoted father, Mopar enthusiast, and close friend today - Mario Knapp, aka "Sarge" or as he is known on the forums, "darkstarsinner".
He left us way too early and will be deeply be missed by all who had the pleasure to know him, whether that be in person or here on the forums. He truly was a great friend and a great man. He leaves behind three young boys, whom he would often post about on his facebook page - updating everybody on all of the fun stuff they would do together. He loved those kids. My heart truly goes out to his boys.
I wanted to take a moment to honor him by sharing some of my memories and pictures of Sarge.
Let me first say that he loved his 300, as a lot of us do. And that is how I met him. If it were not for our mutual love of cars, who knows if we would have ever crossed paths. It wasn't like we were childhood friends or anything, and he lived about 150 miles from me. But sometime last year he introduced himself on the forums as a new member and I greeted him, telling him about our Central Ohio LX Club. I will forever be grateful that our paths did cross, as over the last year I have had the pleasure of chatting online and by phone, meeting up at club events, going on road trips, wrenching together at mod parties and developing a valued friendship that grew far outside of the scope of our love of cars.
After chatting a lot with Sarge on the forums, I first met him in person when he drove two and half hours from Cleveland to my house in Columbus for a frigid cold "mod party" this past February. I still remember his completely stock AWD V6 300 pulling into the driveway and this very tall man hopping out. We hit it off immediately. It's amazing how two strangers with a shared passion can identify with each other so quickly. By the time he left that day, our friendship was sealed… and his car was no longer stock.
I love this pic. The three Brilliant Black amigos.
From the first mod party - Sarge (darkstarsinner), Kevin (kball) and me (Fisch)…
That was the first of many, many days to come that Kevin and I would remind him that he seemed to be missing something - two cylinders! We all always got a good laugh out of that. That day we tinted his side markers and plasti-dipped his bumper trim. And I had previously replaced my grill, so we plasti-dipped my old Grillcraft grill and put it on his car. He was so happy about the one day facelift on his previously stock 300… and I new the mod bug had fully bitten at that point…
The guys had another "mod party" at kball's house a month later in March. Unfortunately I was unable to go at the last minute, but the guys had a great time and got some moddin' done. I believe it was darkstarsinner, kball, onesickhotrod and SRTGR8T. I know Sarge was really pumped to get to test drive SRTGR8T's Gen2 SRT - he reminded me that I missed out on that more than once.
And this is when Sarge's car took on it's sinister look with the red halos. Here's some pics from the "mod party"…
Once the good weather arrived, I got to see Sarge more as the club events started. In June, we took a road trip to Chrysler Headquarters in Detroit for the CEMA show. I joined up with darkstarsinner and kball in Toledo, where we got a parking lot shot of the three BB's showing off their patriotism…
Sarge - red, Kyle - white, Kevin - blue… and yep, of course that's Sarge tweaking his supercharger as he normally does… very proud owner of a supercharged V6 - which he often would remind us when we mentioned he was missing two cylinders…
After joining up in Toledo, we met up with the club at the CEMA show in Detroit. Had a great time. We stayed after it had ended so that we could pull up on the Chrysler Museum's steps to snap some pictures. And at this point, Sarge's car had taken on the fully evil look with the new black wheels. Some of my favorite pics ever - and some memories that I will never forget…
We took another road trip in July to the LX & Beyond Nats / Modern Street Hemi Shootout. With the track getting rained out, we still had a blast at the alternate parking lot LXBN show. Sarge won a Top 10 Choice Award - something I know he was proud of, seeing the transformation he had made to his 300…
Sarge and Kevin stayed for the makeup race day for the MSHS that Sunday and got to run against each other. Here is a video of their run. Sarge's supercharged V6 jumping then running with with Kevin's V8…
