Can Pro Mod Class Usher In A Renaissance For The NHRA?

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What has at least 120 wheels, three different kinds of engines, a kaleidoscope of designs, benefits from entrepreneurship in industries ranging from automotive to grocery to importing/trade to commercial electrics to oil and gas, generates significant amounts of money, and attracts the attention of nearly 3.2 million TV viewers?

It’s the NHRA’s J&A Service-sponsored Pro Modified class.

With a separate structure from both the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series and the Lucas Oil sportsman ranks, the NHRA’s version of Pro Modified is considered a quasi-professional, self-directing, self-supporting phenomenon that’s gaining popularity in stunning leaps.

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Part of the fascination is “Big Chief” Justin Shearer, the “Street Outlaw” cable-TV star gone legitimate on the dragstrip, and his presence at the recent U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis. But long before he bridged the gap between the scandalous and smart-and-safe factions, the Pro Mod class started building its ratings crescendo. Pro Mod has increased TV viewership of its half-hour program with FOX Sports by 279 percent from its ESPN numbers of last year. As of late October, the NHRA Pro Mods had a total 2016 audience of 3.18 million.

I think if we look at the popularity of Pro Mods, it’s essentially because we have three different power-adders. You always think yours is the best. – John Waldie, RPM

Points leader Rickie Smith is on the verge of earning his third Pro Modified championship this weekend at Las Vegas, unless his battle with challenger Troy Coughlin takes a twist reminiscent of last week’s mistake-riddled Arizona Cardinals-Seattle Seahawks NFL tie game. And Smith, the outspoken veteran whose dossier of amusing anecdotes is as thick as his North Carolina accent, is a powerful personality in the category that’s brimming with self-made businessmen from the U.S. to Canada to South America to the Middle East.

On the racetrack, the Pro Mod appeal is that it has something for everyone. It fields no fewer than a dozen different body styles. And it’s split with three engine power-adders: nitrous-injected, supercharged, and turbocharged – and opinionated drivers that rival Presidential voters in this election year.

“We have a real series with characters,” John Waldie, of Real Pro Mod, the class’ governing body, said. A Toronto-area businessman who was immersed in the recent Major League Baseball playoff, likened it to the American League postseason: “The Blue Jays and Texas Rangers [were] at war in baseball. I can tell you that’s what the Pro Mod deal is like. We love each other. The blower guys just hate those nitrous cars, and the nitrous cars hate the turbos.”

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He laughed in delight, knowing that drama is what draws fans.

“I think if we look at the popularity of Pro Mods, it’s essentially because we have three different power-adders. You always think yours is the best. It’s like ‘The Blue Jays are the best’ or ‘The Yankees are the best.’ That’s maybe the magic of it. Throw in the fact we’ve got at least 12 different body styles – from new cars to old cars to traditional cars. And we’re got some genuine characters. We’ve got Rickie Smith. We’ve got Troy Coughlin. Now we’ve got the Big Chief,” Waldie said.

Pro Mods have some big-name drivers. The cars don’t look alike. They’re not all built the same. They’re loud. They’re really difficult to drive. – Terry Blount, NHRA

Add the fact that Real Pro Mod has put $1.96 million in the NHRA coffers during the last 24 months and it’s easy to see why the world’s premier drag-racing sanction is starting to lean into the boardroom discussions with class leaders.

“Obviously, when you see those numbers, it certainly gets your attention,” Terry Blount, the NHRA’s vice-president of public relations and communications, said. “You take a closer look and see why it’s working.

“Pro Mods have some big-name drivers. The cars don’t look alike. They’re not all built the same. They’re loud. They’re really difficult to drive. There are a lot of cars, and it’s hard to get into the field,” he said. “There’s a lot of drama. It’s more grassroots. It reminds me of the old days of NASCAR.”

And just as the “old days of NASCAR” morphed from moonshine running to Madison Avenue chic, the J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod Series might be ready to make a quantum leap and maybe change the drag-racing dynamic.

“The Pro Mod class probably epitomizes the sport today in 2016 better than anything else,” Waldie said. “We’ve got a heck of a class here. We started years ago with supercharged gassers. Then we had fuel altereds. Then the cars developed from Top Fuel cars into Funny Cars and then in the 1970s, we threw Pro Stock into the mix, and we threw bikes in, as well. I believe the Pro Mod car represents what I’m going to call the Renaissance of Drag Racing.”

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A renaissance, a rebirth, might be exactly what the NHRA needs. That same curiously seductive defiance, rebelliousness, and swagger that were hallmarks of the dawn of drag racing don’t have to disappear. But the post-war car craze of the 1950s isn’t the same. The country has slogged through at least four more wars and emerged in 2016 with shakier economics, a youth movement more digitized than distracted by what’s under the hood of a car, teenagers deferring driver’s licenses indefinitely, and the inundation by foreign automakers.

Our original situation, which NHRA has honored, is they say, ‘You find sponsorship for eight races, and we’ll sponsor two.’ – John Waldie, RPM

Of course, drag racing can capture a fresh audience from all that by touting the tech playground that the NHRA offers. It can incorporate imports, because when today’s young mechanics tinker with the family’s old cars, many of those cars are likely to be Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans, Mazdas, Mitsubishis, and Volkswagens. And the Pro Mod class can appeal to the pocketbook, for its budgets – particularly with its limited schedule – are considerably less than those of other classes.

No category in drag racing is cheap. Depending on the class, a driver’s schedule, fuel type, travel expenses, crew size, and image awareness, budgets can vary wildly. Don Schumacher, who fields seven nitro-class teams in NHRA competition, told Dragzine the per-race budget for a Top Fuel or Funny Car team – “with overhead and everything else” – is $125,000. Waldie estimated an average Pro Mod team spends about $4,000 per race. While that might be a lean estimate, the truth is that the Pro Mod class doesn’t spend nearly what the nitro-class teams do.

So the NHRA Pro Mod class has a tremendous opportunity to help jump-start an NHRA that needs to vie for TV share, put more fans in the seats (although it has had its triumphs this year in several markets), curry more corporate involvement, and become a household name again.

The Pro Mod class probably epitomizes the sport today in 2016 better than anything else,” Waldie said. “We’ve got a heck of a class here. – John Waldie, RPM

“I’m not saying we would go beyond Top Fuel and Funny Car for 10,000-horsepower excitement and Antron and Leah and Brittany and John Force,” Waldie said. “But it’s something sort of new-ish, but it combines new and old. It really capsulizes everything that’s good about the sport. For a lot of reasons, you may be the second choice, but I don’t think in the sport of drag racing, overall, to be the second or third choice is a bad deal.”

Moving forward, RPM is close to dotting all the “i”s and crossing all the “t”s on its contract with the NHRA.

Pro Mod racer-RPM board member Danny Rowe, who has guided his organization through negotiations, said this week, “We know we’re going to have a series in 2017, but we don’t know what it’s going to look like.” Series sponsorship, generously provided by the Colorado business power couple Jim and Annie Whiteley, is still to be determined for the upcoming season, along with whether the series will expand from 10 races to 12. Speculation has been that the Four-Wide spring race at Charlotte and the fall race at Dallas might be on the list.

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“We do think our number is 10-12 races. It’s a comfortable number,” Waldie said. “We’re going to try to be open-minded. We certainly want to go where NHRA wants Pro Mod cars to go, but we have declined a couple of venues because it would mean we’d have to race four weekends in a row and we have a [stretch] in the summer [in which] we race Englishtown, Bristol, and Norwalk. That’s three weekends in a row, and that’s difficult for us. But there are some pretty neat spots that we could race: for instance, Charlotte in the spring, Dallas in the fall. I really believe 12 is our number.”

Rowe said RPM could announce its 2017 plans as early as its Oct. 30 postseason awards banquet at Las Vegas.

RPM pays a handsome sum to be a part of the NHRA, although Pro Mods began in the IHRA and have a home in the PDRA, as well.

Waldie said the nearly $2 million RPM has invested in the NHRA arena “is a bit of a Catch-22. It gives us a little bit of independence. We have wonderful people like Jim and Annie Whiteley, who pay all the purses. Our original situation, which NHRA has honored, is they say, ‘You find sponsorship for eight races, and we’ll sponsor two.’

I think NHRA is really poised for a wonderful five to 10-year era – great growth, lots of excitement. I think we’re at the point now that we could form what we would probably call a real partnership, which is what we want, that they will help us. – John Waldie, RPM

“Peter Clifford is just a magnificent leader,” he said. “I think NHRA is really poised for a wonderful five to 10-year era – great growth, lots of excitement. I think we’re at the point now that we could form what we would probably call a real partnership, which is what we want, that they will help us. Genuinely, I don’t think the phone – from a sponsor point of view – is ringing off the hook in Glendora. But I think they’re really now getting calls. I think this is a wonderful, exciting sport. I think they’re also getting calls from sponsors saying, ‘We’re going to revisit it. We’re going to look at this.’ ”

The revamped IHRA, with NHRA-rooted Mike Dunn as President, has been reaching out to various factions and positioning itself seemingly for a major initiative. But Waldie said RPM hasn’t considered a switch or even some hybrid schedule that would include the IHRA.

“We have a race just before Gainesville, at Palm Beach International Raceway, which is an IHRA track. They were very kind to us. They hosted all our drivers for lunch. It was very well received. Of course, IHRA founded the Pro Mod class. They go in sync,” Waldie said. But his reply was “probably not” when it comes to an IHRA pact.

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“One of the reasons is NHRA has such magnificent facilities. Genuinely, NHRA is where the majority of our membership – I’d say 90 percent – really wants to race, because of the competition, the tracks, the medical, the safety, and everything. That would be a hard sell for us,” he said.

So RPM has cast its lot with the NHRA. And their future looks bright together.

Blount said, though, “The worst thing you can do when something is having a growth spurt is to move too fast. Our position is don’t make too many changes. If you do, you could mess it up. We just want to enjoy it and help it.”

Photos courtesy NHRA/National Dragster

About the author

Susan Wade

Celebrating her 45th year in sports journalism, Susan Wade has emerged as one of the leading drag-racing writers with 20 seasons at the racetrack. She was the first non-NASCAR recipient of the prestigious Russ Catlin Award and has covered the sport for the Chicago Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger, St. Petersburg Times, and Seattle Times. Growing up in Indianapolis, motorsports is part of her DNA. She contributes to Power Automedia as a freelancer writer.
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