Locked And Loaded: The 2018 PDRA Season Preview

The fastest doorslammers in the world are ready to take center stage yet again as the PDRA prepares to fire up their 2018 season. After a huge 2017, the organization is coming into 2018 with tons of momentum and plans on putting on a great show for the fans in their fifth year of racing.

With a fresh lineup of tracks, the PDRA will blaze a horsepower-filled path up and down the East Coast of the United States this season. Tracks like GALOT Motorsports Park, Maryland International Raceway, Virginia Motorsports Park and Darlington Dragway all remain on the schedule for the PDRA in 2018. New for this year will be stops at National Trail Raceway in Hebron, Ohio and US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan. Both of these tracks have solid roots in the door car racing community and should attract some new racers and fans.

According to Bob Harris, the General Manager of the PDRA, Outlaw 632 will be back and Outlaw 10.5 will be on the docket too. “The Outlaw 632 class gained a lot of ground and it will be back this season. Nationwide we’re seeing a lot of these cars coming in since it’s a heads up class that is easy to get into and is a stepping stone to either Pro Nitrous or Pro Boost. We’re going to take on Outlaw 10.5 at four of our races this year and try to grow it. The Outlaw 10.5 class seems to be popular in the Maryland and Pennsylvania area plus it brings in the younger crowd we’re trying to attract.”

By listening to their fans, the PDRA also learned that the Gassers they brought in as exhibition cars in 2017 were a huge hit, so they are going to try and have them make more appearances at events throughout the year. “People really seem to love the old gasser last year. The plan is to bring them back and they will be the supercharged-style gassers from the 1960s. We’re trying to bring them on at all our races this season,” Harris says.

Last season, the PDRA split their popular Top Sportsman class into the Elite 16 and Quick 32 to allow racers a better chance of making the field. Since that worked out so well for the Top Sportsman class, the PDRA will now be rolling this structure over to their ultra-fast Top Dragster category in 2018.

“We will qualify 48 cars in both Top Sportsman and Top Dragster this season. That decision has caused a lot of buzz since IHRA did away with the both of the classes and those racers don’t’ have as many places to race now. Lots of them are in the East Coast region where we run, so it will grow the class, even more, this year,” Harris explains.

Overall the pro classes in the PDRA will remain untouched when it comes to big rule changes except for Pro Stock. This class exploded in popularity in 2017 with full fields at every event and some close racing. To make the class grow even more, the PDRA is opening the transmission rules up for this year.

“Pro Stock has always been a class where you had to run a planetary type transmission, and now we’re going to let the Liberty transmissions in with a bit more weight. There’s been lots of talk of that among the racers about what it will do to the class with this new transmission being allowed in. It will be nice to see Pro Stock more up-to-date as a class when it comes to transmission technology,” Harris says.

Winners in the professional categories of the PDRA will also see their checks grow more this season. A cool $10,000 will go to each racer who wins their class on race day in 2018. This bump is something the PDRA has been working towards for a while and they would like to grow it more in the future.

“Since day one of the PDRA we’ve always thought that $10,000 is what the winner’s payout should be, but we had to get things going first. These cars cost big money to build when you look at a new car, the motor along with the rig you pull it with, so these things are expensive to race. Even $10,000 isn’t enough, but we’re going in the right direction with payouts. We are paying more than many organizations and in the Pros, the first round losers get $1,000 so that’s good money. We’re trying to make it easier to get out and race as much as possible,” Harris explains.

That extra money is going to make the racing even more exciting at each PDRA race if that’s even possible. Looking at classes like Pro Nitrous the competitors really leave it all on the track each week and that makes every win that much better.

“The teams that are doing well are out testing as much as they can because of how tight the racing is. The bump in Pro Nitrous was in the high 3.70s this past season when just a few years ago 3.90 was where the top teams were running ET wise. All these racers run very well, so it makes the class one of the most exciting to watch just because of how competitive everyone is. This year you will see more of that competition as teams have been working on developing their programs more in the offseason,” Harris says.

Not to be outdone, the Pro Boost class came on strong in 2017, and with more technology being brought to this class, these cars are now running nearly as quick as the Pro Nitrous and Pro Extreme cars. This has been keeping the racing tight and Harris expects that to continue in 2018.

“A lot of the Pro Boost teams have been moving to the Liberty five-speed transmissions and saw their times improve. We’re talking about cars that were running in the 3.80s dropping into the .70s and even .60s. Jose Gonzalez did run a 3.63 this year with turbos, but we added weight and did away with the 94mm turbos. The turbo cars now have to run 88mm turbos like they do in the NHRA, but I fully expect them to be just as quick this year after some adjustments.”

The PDRA is going to bring their brand of action-packed Pro Mod racing to 2018 with a vengeance. If you love insanely fast doorslammer action then you need to make it to one of their events this year. With something for every racing fan, you can’t beat the value that the PDRA brings. For those who can’t make it to see the PDRA live, SpeedVideo.com will be the home of the official PDRA live stream again in 2018 so you can catch the action from anywhere.

The 2018 PDRA Season Schedule

• GALOT Motorsports Park April 5-7
• Maryland International Raceway May 3-5
• US 131 Motorsports Park May 31-June 2
• Virginia Motorsports Park June 28-30
• National Trail Raceway July 19-21
• GALOT Motorsports Park September 6-8
• Darlington Dragway October 4-6
• Virginia Motorsports Park October 18-20

The 2017 PDRA Classes

• Pro Extreme
• Pro Nitrous
• Pro Boost
• Extreme Pro Stock
• Top Sportsman
• Top Dragster
• Pro Extreme Motorcycle
• Pro Jr. Dragster
• Top Jr. Dragster
• Extreme Outlaw 632
• Bracket Bash
• Outlaw 10.5