The World Series of Pro Mod (WSOPM) is being held this weekend on the Bradenton Motorsports Park (BMP) dragstrip that’s east of the Florida city. Offering $100,000 to win, the invitational fourth such drag race will allow 32 of the more than 50 drivers invited to participate in qualifying for this high-paying race.
Wes Buck, publisher of Drag Illustrated magazine is the father of this race, which he’s put on three times before this coming weekend’s extravaganza. And yes, there’s going to be a lot more than Pro Mod, even though Buck asserts the class is “the universal language of drag racing.”
After crowning Mike Bowman in 2017, Carl Stevens Jr. the following year and Scotty Oksas World Series of Pro Mod victor in 2019, the event went on hiatus for three years as the Coronavirus took control of the world’s activities.
This weekend’s eighth-mile competition features the WSOPM headliners, of course, but there are more classes taking part in the gathering: Super Pro, Mountain Motor Pro Stock (also by invitation only), Xtreme Front-Wheel-Drive Challenge, D H Davies Racing Factory Stock Classic and Top Dragster. Testing began on the final day of February and continues through Thursday, while qualifying gets underway Friday just before noon.
The event format for this three-day weekend allows the 32 qualified drivers to draw chips that will determine pairings for the first round of elimination and all following rounds. The quicker driver, of course, gets lane choice. There will be a Chicago-style second-chance race to take the 16 quickest non-qualifiers, pairing them randomly, with the quickest two winners coming back for a final round after the WSOPM semifinals.
The event’s Pro Mod teams will use the eighth-mile format with “outlaw” rules, while the Mountain Motor Pro Stock, Top Dragster and Super Pro will also compete on the eighth-mile track. Both Factory Stock and Xtreme Front-Wheel-Drive Challenge utilize the full quarter-mile. All heads-up classes will determine eliminations pairings using a random chip draw.
The weather for this weekend’s race is looking good, with temps in the low 80-degree range, some windy conditions the first two days and only light winds on Sunday. There could be isolated thunderstorms on Saturday evening, but that’s not expected to cause any difficulties for either racers or fans.
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