Pro Modified newcomer Ronnie Hobbs debuted his fresh new ProCharger/ProLine Racing Hemi combination with the Mid-West Pro Mod Series at Texas’ Xtreme Raceway Park earlier this month, and while the weekend ended on a sour note, there were plenty of positive takeaways moving forward.

Hobbs, who last season purchased his Larry Jeffers Race Cars-built Shelby GT350 Mustang from Daniel Pharris, competed in both Radial versus The World and various Pro Modified events with the existing twin-turbocharged engine combination — one that, for a time, held the RvW world record — but he and tuners Jamie Miller and Tim Davis were shifting their mindset to the fledgling ProCharger setup as the calendar flipped to 2020. Not-so coincidentally, Pharris had already been preparing for the changeover when he sold the car to the Texas businessman — Hobbs echoing the sentiment of Pharris and Miller that turbos are, at least relatively speaking, difficult to tune and maintain consistency.

With that, at the urging of Miller and Davis and following further advancements by the team at ProLine in its intake manifolds and other components, Hobbs sent his engines in to convert them to the ProCharger Fx3-140 supercharger.

With everything back together in late June thanks to the efforts of crewman Grant O’Rourke, ProLine, M&M Transmission, and all involved, Hobbs, Miller, and Steve Petty trekked to the Texas Motorplex to test and then headed on to XRP for the Mid-West Pro Mod event.

Hobbs ultimately qualified fourth with a 3.77, and used runs of 3.80 and 3.77 to advance to the semifinal round of eliminations — there, Ronnie clocked an impressive 3.75 in a losing effort to Jim Sakuvich. Unfortunately, in addition to a win-light in the other lane, injury was added to insult when one of the parachutes blossomed upward and lifted the rear end of the Mustang off the ground, sending it careening into the guardrail. The damage, however, was deemed only cosmetic and the team has been hard at it making repairs in time for the upcoming NMCA Super Bowl in St. Louis July 30th to August 2nd.