"Carpe Diem"

As almost everyone knows -- and I make no secret of it -- I am a fan of supercharged cars. The hot rod that I race with my long-time partner Dave Koehler is a supercharged, big block-powered, alky burning, front-motored dragster.

What you may not know is that Dave and I campaigned a twin-motored Top Fuel car in IHRA years back that used nitrous-oxide injection. I have a NOS kit on my '67 El Camino (El Camino Nitrouso) which I run on the odd Wednesday night at my home track of Gateway International. The point I'm making here is that just as I like a blood-rare steak, I also enjoy a rare tuna steak. I like diversity in my life and racing and especially Pro Modified racing.

The one thing that has always been unique to the class of Pro Modified is the diversity of cars, powerplants and philosophies. The titanic clashes of personalities, powerplants, and body styles between the likes of Bill Kuhlmann, Fred Hahn, Scotty Cannon, Robbie Vandergriff, Shannon Jenkins and others over the last 10 years or so have made Pro Modified the most popular door car class since the days of factory-backed, altered wheelbase, match racing door cars.

Turn it into another cookie cutter class and you may as well be watching Pro Stock or Alky Funny Cars race. Those are great hot rods with talented drivers, so do they put a lot of butts in the stands? Unfortunately, no.

Because of recent developments, it is apparent that Pro Modified is in serious danger of becoming what many nitrous racers have long predicted: a thinly disguised alcohol funny car class.

The problem is really simple to identify. The supercharged, alky-burning, hemi- and wedge-headed engines have an edge in power and torque over nitrous-oxide injected, gasoline-burning, carbureted engines. The quickest supercharged Pro Mods at Rockingham, where the weather was ideal for supercharged engines, were more than a tenth to a tenth and a half quicker and five mph faster than the quickest nitrous cars. At Gainesville, where the weather was in favor of the nitrous cars (hot, hot, hot), the spread was about a .05 and approximately the same mile per hour.

The beginning of the end for nitrous cars was when, as a favor to Mopar for their sponsorship of a couple of races and the Pro Mod shootout, IHRA decided to change the rules and legalize the hemi-headed engine, which up to then was totally illegal. They also decided to allow it to be used with any body style. Then shortly thereafter they also changed the rules to allow solid billet heads instead of water-jacketed heads for both the wedge- and hemi-headed engines.

As a result, racers that used to build engines using wedge- or hemi-heads with water jackets now could build or buy Alan Johnson, Bob Newberry, and Brad Anderson engines or components that were designed and built for use in alky funny cars and dragsters. They also got the benefit of clutch, transmission ratios, and other drivetrain programs developed for these engines over the last 30 years or so.

Aside from working doors, rear suspension, and stearing on the left hand side it sounds like an alky funny car to me. The thing that really sticks in my craw is that many nitrous racers told me this would happen and I didn't believe them. Turns out they were right and I was dead wrong.

This year the rules were changed again, taking .20 of a point of gear ratio away but also taking fifty pounds of weight off of the blown cars, which was supposed to slow them down. Obviously it didn't. Blown cars are consistently quicker and faster than ever before, and there are more of them.

Nitrous engine builders and tuners have basically been working with the same combination they have had since the start of the class, a max of 710 cubic inches and three or possibly four stages of nitrous. It is painfully obvious that the nitrous racers have wrung about all they're going to out of that combination while the supercharged racers have continued to improve their combinations. The fact that so many hardcore nitrous racers have or are in the process of switching over to supercharged powerplants is proof of that.

I wouldn't want to have IHRA tech guru Mike Baker's job these days. He is going to have to make some rule changes and make them fast. And whatever he decides to do won't make him any friends, no matter what he does. If he doesn't make drastic rule changes to either slow down the blown cars or speed up the nitrous cars, it is very likely that by the time qualifying at the NHRA race at Houston and the IHRA event at Virginia is over, no nitrous cars will be in the fields. That would be disastrous for the class, the spectators, and both sanctioning bodies.

I believe that the Pro Modified class has to have both nitrous cars and blown cars and they need to run in the low six-second zone to be entertaining. Performance is what makes the class so entertaining. It isn't about parity in drag racing, it is about performance. Save the parity for those cabs they race over in NASCAR.

I believe that Mike Baker has control of the future of the Pro Modified class. He should give the nitrous engine builders more cubic inches and allow clutch management systems to be installed immediately. Take some blower overdrive away if they must but don't make those racers start from scratch. They've had to do that enough times already. Forget about saving these guys money; the class and the racers in it have progressed way beyond the budget stage. It's a Pro Class and it will never again be a class where a racer on a budget will be a player.

I say again, whatever steps Baker takes have to been done immediately. The Romans had a phrase: Carpe diem. Seize the day. Mike Baker has to seize the day, step up to the plate and save the class of Pro Modified from itself. He is the only guy who has the power to do it.

As I said before, I wouldn't want Mike Baker's job.

photo by James Drew

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