NHRA Announces Pro Mod Exhibition Class

By Jeff Burk

In a move that is bound to be popular with one group of racers and fans and not so popular with others, the NHRA has confirmed to DRO that they will run a five race exhibition series for Pro Modifieds during the 2001 season.

Both NHRA President Tom Compton and Senior Vice President-Racing Operations Graham Light confirmed to Drag Racing Online that there will be a five race schedule for the popular six second, 230-mph doorslammers.

"Bringing the Pro Modified class of car as an exhibition at a few select NHRA national events is exciting, I believe, for the racers and fans," said Tom Compton. "The format will be similar to the exhibition schedule we currently maintain with Top Fuel Motorcycles and will give fans of NHRA Drag Racing, both new and old, a sampling of this very popular and exciting form of side-by-side racing."

Graham Light echoed Compton's thoughts. "We are excited to bring our fans an extremely entertaining new exhibition class. We are being very careful to schedule the exhibition races so that they won't conflict with IHRA National Events. We know that many of the racers who race with us will be running for IHRA points and we don't want to interfere with that," Light explained.

Although the NHRA rules for the Pro Modifieds that will run in the Competition Eliminator division are somewhat different from the IHRA rules, specifically in the area of cylinder heads and rear gear limitations for the supercharged cars, Light was quick to say that at the exhibition races all of the entrants would have to adhere to IHRA rules for the classes.

"It wouldn't make much sense to ask those guys to come and run with us and expect them to change their whole combination."

Although the schedule hasn't been released, Light did tell DRO that all of the races will be run at National Event tracks East of the Mississippi river.

"It will be an eight car field with open qualifying," Light said. "They (Pro Modified) will run with the Pros on Friday and Saturday and run eliminations on Sunday."

NHRA made it very clear that the new class was just an exhibition class and nothing more. No official points, no World Champion, and a very limited schedule of appearances.

After NHRA announced earlier that it would include Pro Modified cars in the Competition eliminator class next year, many IHRA Pro Modified competitors stated that they wouldn't run NHRA in a sportsman class, but would race if they were invited as Pro racers. NHRA's program addresses their request.

The last time NHRA adopted a class that the sanctioning body didn't develop themselves it was also a doorslammer class. NHRA went to mountain motored Pro Stocks in 1982 in a direct reaction to another IHRA class. At the 1982 Winternationals, NHRA Pro Stocks were allowed a minimum weight and a 500 cubic inch engine in place of the weight per cubic inch formula they had previously employed. The Pro Stock elapsed time record dropped from 8.20 to 7.82 at that event, and the fans loved it.

It should be equally exciting for NHRA doorslammer fans the first time they are able to see 6.20/230-mph cars with doors race at an NHRA track.

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