As many that have followed drag racing for any length of time know, Pro Modified – arguably the most exciting and popular category in the sport – traces its roots back to the southern and eastern United States. In the late 1980’s, the IHRA was contesting heads-up, 8-car shootouts during its national events for the quickest Top Sportsman qualifiers, and it was the wildly popular race-within-a-race format that transformed into the thousand pound gorilla we see today. The IHRA officially introduced the Pro Modified category in 1990, bringing heads-up doorslammer racing to the masses in a region that craved door car racing. But from the very outset, the class wasn’t just confined to the eastern United States, and we have the video to back that up.

This footage, broken up into several parts on YouTube that can easily be found by following the links to the right, comes to us from the historic Famoso Raceway (now known as Auto Club Famoso Raceway) in Bakersfield, California, where some of the earliest hitters from the Pacific coast defended their territory from several east coast runners that made the trek out west. Among these clips, you’ll find racers such as Wayne Torkelson and his ’57 Thunderbird, Robbie Vandergriff and his ’57 Chevy, bob Bunker, Gordie Faust, Wally Bell, Charles Carpenter, and Jeff Littleton.