On the eve of the 10th annual NHRA Carolina Nationals, series officials broke an earlier promise made to drivers and teams competing in the J&A Service Pro Mod Drag Racing Series.
Surprising drivers, the National Hot Rod Association made several sudden and unexpected changes to the pro mod class, primarily that turbo-charged entries will lose two pounds of boost, from 38 to 36 psi.
According to officials, these changes were necessary to adjust for performance advantages that one particular engine combination might have over another.
“In Pro Mod we have three engine combinations: nitrous, supercharged and turbocharged. We specifically look at the average of the four quickest ETs of each of the three engine combinations at each race. When any of them gets more than a three hundredths advantage in ET at a number of races we typically make a rule change to bring the three combinations closer together in performance,” said Vice President of Technical Operations for NHRA Glen Gray.
“In this case the turbocharged combination had a more than three hundredths difference in performance over the supercharged combination and a greater than four hundredths difference over the nitrous combination over the past five races. While we don’t like to make changes this late in the season, we still have 25 percent of the Pro Mod season left.”
This is a massive power hit for competitors like two-time series champion Troy Coughlin.
“With just three races left in our season the timing of this decision is tough, but it’s the NHRA’s sandbox so they can do whatever they want I suppose,” said Coughlin.
“We actually started hearing this rumor a week or so ago so we figured they would target the turbo-charged cars, so we went to work right away to try and find different ways to make power. Eric Dillard and his crew at Proline Racing Engines have been very proactive and we’re fighting back the best we can.”
It remains to be seen how this rule change will affect this weekend’s Pro Mod race outcome.
Stay tuned to RacingJunk.com for the latest on all things NHRA.
Like Pro-Stock and other classes , the NHRA is ” Rules ” itself out of racers …!
NHRA brilliance, punish those that are smart enough to engineer their cars for better performance, and they probably blame the decreasing ticket sales on Trump
So the guy’s build a better setup, goes faster, and quicker, and for doing so you punish them. Starting to sound like NASCAR now.
Why not just pass out trophies to each participant like they do in kindergarten now? Have you folks forgotten the benefit of innovation and experimentation? Why undermine the efforts of the teams who innovate to optimize, let the others play catch-up!
My sentiments exactly! Equalization has ruined all types of racing. Don’t the sanctioning bodies know that people will come out to see a dominating driver, because such dominance has created a superstar. Same goes for the car. Anybody remember the McLaren Can Am team? Five straight championships. Won all eleven races in 1969. Richard Petty would have been just another NASCAR driver under the current rules. OK, maybe he would have been better than that, but no way would he have won 200 races–and people wouldn’t come out just to see him, because he wouldn’t have been The King.
Agree, get a trophy for showing up ….
true somebody cried
Yup. Ur exactly correct. Give out mvp trophies to everybody like they do in kids sports. Fuck the nhra. Nascar ruined racing with all thier restrictions!!
Pure bullshit. Like Adolph Hitler collecting his scientist for personal gains. Whose the cry baby that can’t keep up with the engine builders. I say, if you can’t beat them, load them back in the trailer.
Pure fucking horse shit. Why doesnt the nhra join in with the nascar pussies. Omg someone may go faster than the other guy. Omg his engine is better than mine waaaaah!!!! Oh well. Those pussy racers put up with their shit. The whole lot of em should stay the fuck home for a few weeks. Let the stands sit empty!!
Shoot off an email to the nhra. I did. Told them to keep up their socialist venue. Told them to fuck their rules too. The fucking pussies.
In case you guy’s haven’t noticed, the nhra pro mod class is losing interest and the clean aero turbo cars are the reason, they are taking over the class and it needs to be stopped, Pro mods are wild crazy body styles and big honkin blowers, not clean sanitized aero packages with turbos, I applaud the NHRA on this one. Now if they’d go back to 1/4 mile nitro…
I think the big blower cars should have a class of their on. Turbo and nitrous cars pack the stands. I f fans want to see big blower type races they will look at the nitro classes.
Concurrence on both.
Don’t let promod become the joke prostock is
as long as they meet weight and engine size I say let them run
If you guys want the equalization rules lifted I would build one with a PSI “C” blower and run it 125% over and see who wins instead of making them run antique roots blowers. Bye-bye nitrous and turbo cars.
Weight to cubic inch.
well that decision saved me 250K… i’ll go spend my money in some other sport I guess.
The NHRA is not racing, it is just entertainment. Licensing TV money is all this sanction body cares about. Wally Parks is probably rolling over in his grave.