The NHRA Pro Mod experiment is over! 11/16/05
Following that first year, Kenny Nowling convinced Dave Wood, owner of AMS Staff Leasing and his own Pro Mod racing team, and the NHRA to expand the schedule and raise the purse. Nowling put together the deal that led to Ted Jones’s Masters Entertainment airing a 30-minute TV program showcasing the AMS Pro Mod series exclusively. Later, the qualified field was expanded to a 16-car field. Nowling had much to do with all of that happening. From the outside, the NHRA Pro Mod experiment appeared to be a flaming success. Unfortunately, as we all know, appearances can be deceiving! You see, despite the fact that Dave Wood was investing literally millions of his own dollars in the class with little or no expectations of a return on his investment, instead of embracing the class many powerful people and especially some professional class racers had no use for Pro Mod and did everything they could to kill the class. In the second year of the NHRA Pro Mod experiment Pro Mods were often parked on the asphalt close to the professional classes. Tom Compton often was seen in the Pro Mod pits. Pro Mod's star in the NHRA appeared to be rising. Now, just five years later, Dave Wood and his company are no longer backing the class, Jim Oddy hasn't raced with NHRA in a year, and Kenny Nowling has moved on. It appears doubtful that another individual or company is willing to step up and fund the class as a philanthropic effort. And the NHRA has made it absolutely clear they will not fund a Pro Mod class on their own dime. What happened? As I see it, first, the NHRA management never anticipated the Pro Stock Truck lawsuit disaster, which has made the suits at NHRA very wary of adopting a new class. Second, they didn’t anticipate the angry reaction from the existing pro teams at the idea of adding another pro class that might attract big sponsors. Third and perhaps most important, they didn't anticipate the serious resistance from inside the NHRA to adding yet another professional class. After the second year of NHRA Pro Mod racing, NHRA management including Graham Light told anyone that asked that Pro Modified would never, never be a POWERade professional class. In the last two years it has become painfully clear that only as long as someone paid the NHRA for the privilege of allowing Pro Mods to have an exhibition series would the class be allowed to race. The NHRA didn’t want any responsibility for or grief from the Pro Mod exhibition class. Basically the Pro Mod class and its racers have received no respect from the NHRA. They were parked out in the boondocks, sometimes miles from their fans, there was no place in the winners circle for the winner, and in the press room I can personally attest to the fact that unless a journalist specifically requested Pro Mod results it wasn’t available. NHRA’s public relations staff seldom if ever included any Pro Mod results in their press releases. In short, my fellow Pro Mod fans, NHRA viewed Pro Mod as a pain in their ass not an asset.
So, here we are today with no NHRA Pro Mod program in place for 2006 or the foreseeable future. Dave Wood and Evan Knoll had a handshake deal in place to fund the NHRA Pro Mod series for three more years but Mr. Knoll changed his mind and Dave Wood issued a press release saying he was no longer interested. NHRA Pro Mod Champ Mike Ashley has said that he is trying to put together a program to bring the Pro Mods back to NHRA, but, unless he is willing to donate a rumored $800,000-$1,000,000 of his money or find someone who will share the burden with him to bring back a class he says he isn’t even going to compete in, I just don’t see it happening. In the meantime, while a lot of racers and a few fans are wringing their hands over the apparent demise of the class, the NHRA has been completely silent on the matter. Their silence speaks volumes about how much they don’t care about the class. My question now is why would Pro Mod racers even care if they race at NHRA national events? The NHRA has treated professional Pro Modified racers with less respect and given them less attention than they give their sportsman classes. As far as I can tell Pro Mod hasn’t derived any benefit from their NHRA association as far as sponsorship or mainstream media exposure such as local newspapers, television or NHRA2day. After years of struggling to be recognized as a professional class (which they are at IHRA) are Pro Mod racers suddenly content to be treated as an exhibition class for the privilege of racing at a few NHRA national events? Are they now content to have the same status at NHRA events as jet cars, wheelstanders, and street motorcycle acts just to race at NHRA events? In my opinion, the grand NHRA Pro Mod experiment is over and it
was a failure. While we all appreciate being given a shot at NHRA,
Pro Mod teams ought to race with and support sanctioning bodies
where they are treated as a professional class and stars. The ADRL
and the IHRA are just two examples. It’s time to face the
fact that Pro Modified is never going to be a professional class
in the NHRA and to move on, because it is very obvious that NHRA
doesn’t need or want the class. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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NHRA Pro Mod experiment began back in 2000 when Jim Oddy made a
call to a couple of his pals at the sanctioning body and asked what
it would take for the nation's premier drag racing sanctioning body
to bring Pro Mod to the National Hot Rod Association. That call
led to Oddy meeting with Tom Compton and other NHRA execs at Indy
that year, and that meeting led to a five-race, eight-car, qualified
field exhibition series in 2001. 
