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PRO STREET  Originally
this class was intended for street racers with licensed, titled, all-steel,
legal street cars that could run in the low eights or occasionally in
the high seven-second zone. Today, the cars in the class are thinly disguised,
Pro Stock/Pro Modified style, expensive race cars with working lights
and windows. Instead of the all steel '55-57 Chevys and '67-69 Camaros
that originally populated the class, it now features six-second, tube
chassised, fiberglass bodied '57 Chevys, turbocharged trucks, and purpose
built Firebirds with 800 cubic inch engines under the hood. In order to satisfy everyone, the rules now allow so many different powerplants, body styles and weight combinations that the Pro Street class resembles the early days of NHRA Pro-Stock racing more than it does a street legal class. The two hitters in the class, Tony Christian (below) and Bob Rieger, race fiberglass-bodied '57 Chevys that run in the 6.60/210mph range and probably cost over $150,000 each to build.  Most
of the cars in the class are a long way from being street legal or streetable,
but the class remains very entertaining due to the pitched battle both
on the track and off by Tony Christian whose '57 uses a Reher-Morrison
NOS-equipped big block for power and Reiger's '57 that has a turbocharged
small block for power (below). Both are excellent drivers and talkers
and evidently don't care for each other that much. When any of these two
guys show up at an event, the entertainment they provide alone is worth
the price of a ticket.
The cost of racing in this class has skyrocketed in recent years because to be competitive a racer has to have a professionally built car and a serious (read expensive) engine program. Despite the fact that NMCA/Emap Petersen has posted a fairly serious points fund in NMCA the number of cars continues to drop and it would appear that NMCA and NSCA are going have to rethink their rules for Pro Street just as NHRA did a couple of decades ago for Pro Stock, if this class is going to survive much less prosper. OUTLAW STREET There is nothing street or legal about this class. The cars in this class are nothing more than Pro Modifieds and IHRA Pro Stocks running on supposedly DOT-approved street tires. If you like watching Pro Modified racing you will love these cars. If, on the other hand, you're looking for street legal cars, don't bother. This is a class invented by NMCA to get cars and racers through the back gate at their events and nothing more. Great looking cars and racing but street legal, not a chance.
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