The IHRA Outlaw Pro Mod Nationals provided a giant stage and $125,000 paycheck, so naturally, it would be a tough event to win. The biggest names in Pro Mod came to Darana Dragway – Milan for the chance to bring home the massive purse, and when the chutes were pulled in the final, Randy Weatherford was victorious.

In the month of August, Weatherford’s team has been locked in. At the PDRA Northern Nationals, Weatherford chewed through a tough field of Pro Boost cars to pick up the event win. The following week, the WS Construction-backed car rolled into Milan ready for another fight and was prepared to make it deep into eliminations at the IHRA Outlaw Pro Mod Nationals.

Weatherford is a seasoned veteran behind the wheel, and his team understands how to approach big races. Being dropped into the middle of a great field of cars with a big pot of money going to the winner isn’t new territory for Weatherford. The team approached this event like any other, one round at a time.

“We planned on taking what the track could give us and push the car just hard enough to get the job done. After qualifying, we had an idea of how much track was there based on the temperatures and grip ranges. Before each run, we’d check the track, see where it was at, and decide how hard we could push the car to run the number we felt would win,” Weatherford says.

The tried and true race day plan worked for Weatherford, and he found himself in the final round against Kallee Mills. Both cars had been laying down fast laps all day long, so Weatherford knew he was in for a fight in the money round.

“I qualified with a 3.60, and her car was capable of putting up that number, so we knew she could run right there with us. The fact that she had trouble the previous round wasn’t even a factor for our tune-up decision. We knew in the final they would be ready, so we had to push the car as hard as possible. Looking at the data, we were right on the edge, but the car made it down, and it was a good race,” Weatherford explains.

Winning the biggest payday in Pro Mod history isn’t lost on Weatherford at all. He has enjoyed soaking in the victory.

“It’s like I said before, when you win something like this, nobody can take the trophy or victory away, it’s for life. The money will go away, you’ll spend that, but I’ll always have this trophy. The announcers said the fans were 70 percent in favor of her winning and only 30 percent believed in me. I thought to myself on the flight back, ‘damn I wish I’d put a bet of $125,000 on myself to win,” Weatherford said.

Weatherford is now on a nine-round winning streak. He qualified number one at the PDRA Northern Nationals and went on to win the event. He qualified number one at the IHRA Outlaw Pro Mod Nationals and won. The last two weeks have been huge for his program, and Weatherford is looking forward to seeing what the rest of the season brings.

“This gives me a lot of confidence going forward. We’ve got this new Harts supercharger working well. I think when teams pull up to run us now, they have to say, ‘hey, we need to make our best run because these guys are tough.’ We’re ready for the rest of this season to run well wherever we race,” Weatherford says.

Randy Weatherford’s IHRA Outlaw Pro Mond Nationals win is huge, but the Virginia-based racer doesn’t plan on just milking this victory. Weatherford is already preparing for the next event, and that’s what makes him a successful racer who can score these types of victories.