Last week, National Muscle Car Association officials revealed the series’ 2016 class rule amendments which contained, of particular note, one of the most significant and foundational changes in the organizations’ two-decade history.

Beginning with the NMCA season opener at Bradenton, Florida in March, the series’ premier category will become known as Xtreme Pro Mod, and will, for the first time, be contested over an 1/8-mile race distance, rather than the full 1,320-feet that it’s been run on since the pre-NMCA heydays of the famed Fastest Street Car Shootouts.

A descendant of the longtime Pro Street category, Xtreme Pro Mod is an all-in effort on the NMCA’s part to appeal to 1/8-mile racers with the PDRA and other, smaller sanctioning organizations, to increase car counts and competition. Technical Director Dave Werremeyer and the NMCA team have designed Xtreme Pro Mod to include a vast array of combinations, including small- and big-blocks (including Hemi’s) and nitrous, roots blower, screw blower, centrifugals, and twin-turbo power adder setups. Given the weights, cubic inch, and power adders limitations in play, the class is likely to be in the 3.70s and 3.80s, and effectively bring together the Pro Extreme, Pro Nitrous, and NHRA-legal Pro Mod/Pro Boost classes into one eliminator.

The NMCA’s headlining class has undergone quite the transformation over the last 20 years, moving from legitimate, big-tire, street legal, street-driven muscle cars with all-steel bodies, to lightweight race cars with headlights and a horn, to true NHRA-legal Pro Mods.

Xtreme Pro Mod will join two other relatively new NMCA categories, Radial Wars and Street Outlaw, as the only 1/8-mile classes in the series. Complete rules for Xtreme Pro Mod can be viewed HERE.