Jason Harris has made his mark in Pro Mod racing behind the wheel of nitrous-powered race cars during his career, but that was the past, the future is looking a whole lot different. The new Party Time Racing Camaro is heading into the 2020 season without the familiar nitrous engine under the hood, in its place is Pro Line Racing power with a giant ProCharger adding the boost.
In 2019 Kevin Rivenbark shook the PDRA Pro Boost tree when he switched from a roots supercharger to a new ProCharger package from Pro-Line. Rivenbark’s level of success with the new combination in the PDRA garnered a lot of attention and it helped Harris make the decision to switch classes and power-adders.
“Over the years we’ve had a lot of success with nitrous, we’ve won two world championships in the PDRA, plus there have been many other wins on both the local and national level, but it was time for a change. It seems like this is a new package that’s coming into its own and we wanted to be on the leading edge of it. A lot of guys are running the turbo and roots blower combinations, but this just seems to be the new thing,” Harris says.
The Camaro that Harris will be driving this year was built by Jerry Bickel Race Cars and was a turbo car campaigned in the NHRA by Dan Stevenson. RK Race Cars went through the car and completed multiple upgrades for Harris before the car was ready for testing. Under the hood of the Camaro is a 526 cubic-inch HEMI from Pro Line with an F-3X-140 from ProCharger providing the all of the boost. The transmission behind the Pro-Line HEMI is an M&M Transmission lock up TH-400 transmission with one of their torque converters.
Making the switch from nitrous to boost is a tricky task even for a seasoned team so Harris wanted to make the transition as smooth as possible. To make this happen Harris will be working with some of the brightest minds at Pro Line Racing.
“For tuning right now we’re going to work with Steve Petty, Eric Dillard, and the rest of the Pro Line team. Those guys are going to help us out for the first few races and we’re going to see how things go from there. We’re going to see how well we catch on, but Pro Line will work with us for at least the first five races and see how things go. Pro Line has stood behind us and been great in getting this combination ready for the 2020 racing season,” Harris explains.
We’re really excited to team up with Pro-Line and are happy we could get into their program with this new package. Jason Harris.
Jumping behind the wheel of a boosted Pro Mod capable of making over 3,000 horsepower may seem easy for someone with the level of experience Harris possesses, but you might be surprised by his apprehension. He won’t have to deal with opening up nitrous valves or purging the nitrous system, however, there are still some things he’s going to learn on the job.
“This is my first time driving a boosted car of this caliber, all of my Pro Mod racing career has been spent driving nitrous cars. Truthfully, I’m a little nervous, I’ve made countless laps in a nitrous car so I really don’t know what to expect. I’ve talked to other drivers who have driven both combinations, some have said one is harder than the other so it’s going to be interesting. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this anxious to get behind the wheel before we test, but I assume 3.65 feels the same whether you’re in a nitrous car or a blower car,” Harris says.
The plan right now for Harris is to do some testing at Bradenton Motorsports Park this week before the U.S. Street Nationals. If things go well, the team hopes to qualify for the race and learn a lot during the Camaro’s maiden voyage. Harris will be satisfied if they can get the car to go A to B without any major issues so they can start picking away at the tune-up to find more performance.
With a new car and combination comes big expectations and Harris isn’t pulling any punches, he wants to win this season.
“Our main focus is going to be on the PDRA Pro Boost class, my goal is to become the first person to win a championship in Pro Nitrous and Pro Boost. I’m not going to say there won’t a radial race in there since this combination seems to like radial tires. We’ve talked about racing Radial vs The World at the Sweet 16 and some other events too,” Harris says.
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