Will Pro Mod see even more fireworks fly in Bristol this weekend?
/We have reached the halfway point of the season for the Pro Mods. A season that has been dominated by blower cars, no matter their overdrive limit. This is just one thing that has caused the embers to spark in the pro mod pits recently.
As we've discussed before, pro mod is undoubtedly the toughest and tightest NHRA heads up class there is right now. Every pro mod weekend there are 25-32 cars trying to squeeze into 16 spots. We have seen record runs, we have seen record bump spot, and we have seen tempers flare, not only at the track, but online as well.
Last weekend in Etown was set to be no different either. The biggest difference was that the Champ, Tricky Rickie Smith was in town and strapped into his Vallen backed, Musi powered Camaro. It is well known that the nitrous cars haven't exactly had the best go of it this season, whether it be setups or rules. Rickie single-handedly changed that on Sunday, when he beat Troy Coughlin in the finals.
The big story throughout the weekend at Etown though were how tempers were flaring in regards to rules and just about everything else you could think of. Anyone who knows drag racing at any level knows that this crap happens every single weekend in every sanctioning body. You are never going to make everyone happy and there is no reason that everyone has to sit in a circle and sing Kumbaya. There is a lot of money being spent, a lot of time away from home, and a ton of pride on the line, so if drivers don't like each other I am fine with that.
If you think last weekend was an anomaly, I would bet you are dead wrong. Last weekend was just the start of the three in a row for the pro mods. We have drivers that have never experienced the three in a row summer time swing either. So yes, tempers are bound to flare up again and people will take to the internet to voice their disdain for other drivers, but the simple fact is that having tempers flare is good for the sport. It means that people care that much for what they are doing. Drag racing needs tempers to flare. We need people to stop being robots and actually have a non PC response.
What we are going to see this weekend is the following, what are the turbos cars going to do to get spooled up and not melt their shit down while waiting on the nitrous cars to stage? Will the blower cars still have the advantage in ET? Will we see Harry, Shane, Troy, Michael, or Sidnei break the pro mod MPH record finally, after knocking on it's door race after race? How many tools are going to be tossed around in the pits and how many are going to be able to control their tempers?
Let's not forget that we will also see previous World Champion Von Smith driving the Mike Knowles Blown Money car this weekend, after being replaced by Carl Stevens in the Jim Bell owned Camaro leading into Etown. We will also see the California King Michael Bowman in his killer '69 Chevelle.
Right now the top five cars in pro mod are separated by less than 200 points. With just this race and next week at Norwalk, it's time for everyone to step up before their summer break, to put themselves in the best position come Indy on Labor Day weekend. You can't afford to stutter and fall backwards this weekend or next, because you will have 2 months to think about it if you do.
The final entry for Bristol:
And the points going into Bristol look like this:
01 Mike Castellana 529
02 Steven Whiteley 396
03 Troy Coughlin 362
04 Steve Jackson 350
05 Steve Matusek 338
06 Sidnei Frigo 295
07 Shane Molinari 289
08 Danny Rowe 257
09 Jonathan Gray 246
10 Khalid AlBalooshi 241
11 Michael Biehle 207
12 Mike Janis 187
13 Larry Morgan 176
14 Shannon Jenkins 149
15 Rickie Smith 148
16 Bob Rahaim 147
17 Todd Tutterow 139
18 Eric Latino 131
19 Harry Hruska 125
20 Jim Whiteley 124
