By Scott “Woody” Woodruff

It’s Wednesday and this is the last full day I have scheduled to be in the office before leaving for Indy.  I always call the day before I leave the “gathering day”.  I try and think through everything I will need to do my job.  Every race is a little different, so I can’t just use a standard list for each race.

This morning when I was making my list I got a call from Jeg Sr. on my mobile.  He called to let me know he was going to be in Indy and he needed a room.  I told him, “That’s great - because everything works better when you’re around!” He, of course, said “Thanks for the kind words” like he always does.  I started thinking during our conversation that we had a coach in the shop that wasn’t going to be used this weekend - since John and Mike aren’t going to be racing.  I offered to bring it over to Indy on Thursday.  I think I caught him off guard and he liked the idea a lot.

I then started making a couple phone calls to make sure all was good with the coach and started getting it ready to go.  After organizing what I needed to bring to Indy, I started filling up the space under the coach with boxes and stuff I needed to bring.

I got to say - I am really looking forward to driving a coach over to Indy.  It’s been along time since I got behind the wheel.  Years ago I drove the coach and really enjoyed it.  I saw a lot of great things going from race to race.  I plan to turn off the phone, turn up the XM radio during my trip tomorrow and enjoy the ride.

Paul Athey was then driving the Merc for Johnny Rocca. He was the second alternate with a 6.335/220.37

The year is the eighth that the U.S. Nationals has hosted the baddest door cars on the planet…Pro Modifieds. With that in mind DRO Editor Jeff Burk decided it might be nice to look back at the previous seven years of Pro Mods at the U.S. Nats.

So to paraphrase an old Chrysler ad campaign “Suddenly it’s 2001”

In 2001 the NHRA Pro Mod racing series was and remains one of the toughest in the history of the NHRA. A pretty bold statement but bear with me I think the facts bear that out.

In 2001 A group of people including Jim Oddy, Tom Compton, and later Kenny Nowling convinced the NHRA to have a five-race Pro Mod series within the NHRA’s event at five of their National Event tracks including the most prestigious of them all the U.S. Nationals. The series gained momentum through the first four races and by the time the U.S. Nationals came around the quickest and fastest Pro Mod teams in the world were ready for their time in the U.S. Nationals spot-light.

How tough was the series? Well in the first couple of years of NHRA Pro Modified the fields were limited to 8 cars and each event. So at each of the invitation only NHRA races there would be a minimum of 16 cars and up to 24 of the absolutely best cars trying to make the elite eight car field. Qualifying at each event was nothing short of brutal and savage. Tuners and drivers pushed the envelope on every qualifying attempt. I can honestly say that those qualifying sessions remain the most compelling tension-filled racing I’ve seen in my life. Not only were teams trying to qualify for the race but they were trying to keep getting invited to the next race.

Fred Hahn drove Jim Oddy’s ’01 Vette to a record ET in qualifying

Think about that for a minute. What if today’s Top Fuel or Funny Car teams could only come to the next NHRA event if they qualified well? You talk about pressure to perform.
So at the 2001 U.S. Nationals there are 24 of the elite trying for just eight spots and the most important race of their lives. There were 12 supercharged entries and 12 nitrous oxide injected entries. After four days of qualifying three blown cars and five nitrous cars made up the qualified field for Pro Mod. 

Qualifying was lead by Jim Oddy’s Fred Hahn driven, ‘01Vette (which at the time had a Supercharged Chevy wedge engine in it) at 6.170/227.96. Hahn was followed by Texas Outlaw racer Thomas Patterson at 6.215/226.77. The quickest nitrous equipped car belonged to Shannon Jenkins who shoed his ’68 Camaro powered by a 706 inch Fulton/Olds engine to a 6.231/223.62. 

2001 Pro Mod winner Ronnie Hood goes off against Shannon Jenkins.

An indication of how important this race was to the Pro Mod racer Hahn’s times were at the time the quickest ever Pro Mod pass and I think the speed was near record too. To do that Oddy had built a one-off motor just for Indy and wounded it beyond repair in qualifying forcing him to go to his less zoot spare.

Race day (Monday) was the usual Indy fall weather (freakin’ hot and humid) and some teams like Oddy and Hahn, Shannon Jenkins and Ed Hoover couldn’t get a grip on the track. But in the end it was a blown car; Californian Danny Rowe’s 37 Chevy and a Carolina nitrous Pro Mod hitter by the name of Ronnie Hood in the final round. Hood

Billy Harper was the number four qualifier at the 2001 race

used a hole-shot on fellow, then- nitrous racer Quain Stott to punch his ticket into the finals while on the other side Rowe got a freebie when Billy Harper who had ruined an engine winning in the first round couldn’t answer the call.

The final saw Hood turn in a .480 light to Rowe’s .516 and motor to the win with a 6.349/222.80 to Rowe’s 6.399/218.16

Hood became the second African American to win a NHRA U.S. Nationals Pro Category joining Antron Brown who won in the Pro Stock Bike Category the year before.

Canadian racer Raymond Commisso was one of the competitors working headlights and all.

Final Round Qualifying Stats

Roger Richards photo

Colorado business man, Mike Knowles has had one of the roughest seasons of racing he can remember, but as the old saying goes “a bad day at the race track is better than a good day at the office”. That attitude is what keeps Knowles’ desire for competition on the 1320 alive.

After Knowles car was crashed on its first outing he returned to Jeg’s Pro Mod Competition at the O’Reilly backed Thunder Valley Nationals in mid May. He then made the decision to leave the JEGS ProMod Challenge Series as an owner. Not a driver.  “We could’ve kept going and went to Englishtown but we wouldn’t have made any progress with our combination. I felt that with the way the season was going we needed to take some time off from the series and regroup. It was a hard decision to make but this series is ultra competitive and you need to have everything in place to be able to compete against these guys,” said Knowles.

During the self-imposed hiatus Knowles hired well known Canadian engine-builder/ tuner Al Billes to oversee his engine program and after a successful test session Knowles is looking forward to having fun at the racetrack again. “Our team along with a few others rented out South Georgia Motorsports Park for some pre-Indy testing. We rented the track for three days and wouldn’t you know it, it rained for most of two days. Luckily, we got some hits in on our Tim McAmis built Vette; Seven to be exact. With Al (Billes) taking care of the tune up and myself and my crew taking care of the general maintenance we were able to see some good performance. My guys worked their butts off and I’m real pleased at how well they worked with Al. I feel Al joining my team will make for one killer combination. I can’t wait for Indy,” said an optimistic Knowles

At Indy, Pro Modifieds will be afforded four attempts at making the 16-car field. The first qualifying session will be Friday evening at 8pm. The second session will be Saturday at 3pm with the third Saturday evening at 8pm. Knowles will get one last shot at the field on Sunday afternoon at 2pm before eliminations begin at 5pm.

-Woody

Ed Note: This the first of a daily blog that Jeg's head of Communications and Director of the Jeg's Pro Mod series is going to write for DRO's same day coverage of the Pro Mods at the U.S. Nationals.

By Scott “Woody” Woodruff (the longtime Director of Media and Motorsports for JEGS)

Hello, DRO readers. Jeff Burk has asked me to write a blog about our JEGS ProMod Challenge series and the upcoming race in Indy—the 54th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals. I hope you all find this fun and informative and it sheds a little light on what we’re doing.

As most of you know, JEGS took over the Pro Mod series in the NHRA at the start of the year. It was about to go away altogether, but one of the brothers, in this case Troy Coughlin, loved the class so much he asked me to give it a look and see if there was a way we could help out and make it work.

NHRA has run Pro Modified cars as an exhibition class for seven years. The series had been run by some racers and various sponsors over that time and everyone involved did their best to make it fun and exciting. That was basically the same approach we decided to take—make it competitive, fair, and most of all, fun.

I had several phone calls with my good friend Rob Geiger about how we should run things. I asked Rob to come on board and do public/media relations for the series and help get a Web site up and running. I also asked for his help in running the series. He agreed and we were basically off to the races.

The first thing we realized was that we needed a rulebook that people could reference. The series had been running under the IHRA rules with a few modifications. We gathered a quick consensus from some key race teams and wrote our own rulebook, which everyone agreed on right away. That lifted one burden right away.

The second thing was to figure out how we would select racers for each event. We had a problem on our hands—there were more people wanting to race than we had space for and the NHRA limited us to 24 cars at some races and just 20 at others. Rob and I both agreed we had to be fair and consistent in our selection process.

The first thing we decided was that the core group of race teams that contributed money to the series would have automatic entry to every race. They’d still have to qualify, but they’d be invited to every race. It’s not the best-case scenario, to be sure, but without financing from a few outside sources, this deal was never going to get off the ground.

In total, nine drivers fit the criteria for what we called a “sponsor exemption.”

(Todd Dziadosz photo)

Next, we thought it would be fair to invite past series champions. There were six people on that list (Mike Ashley had won the title twice) and Ashley and Jay Payne were already in via sponsor exemptions, so that left four invites out there. Well, Fred Hahn is retired, so that left three, and at the start of the year, Rickie Smith and Shannon Jenkins didn’t have plans to race with us, so all we had was Josh Hernandez.

So, we had 10 spots filled.

Next, we thought it would be proper to reward the racers that had been loyal to the series so Rob spent a few days compiling all the stats from the first seven years and we went down the list from there.

After that, we sent out a note to every racer we could think of telling them to let us know if they were interested in running our series, and we’ve had no shortage of interest ever since.

The coolest thing of all would be to open the gates and let everyone that wanted to race in but we’re playing in the NHRA’s sandbox and we have to meet the guidelines they set out for us. So far, everything has gone off great and we have an awesome group of racers in the series.

Up next, we’ll talk about the season to date, and I’ll try to handicap the field heading into Indy.

Woody

Pro Modified drag racer Harold Laird and crew chief Terry Coyle are eagerly anticipating a return to the MAC Tools U.S. Nationals next week where they will look to put the Laird Motorsports team in victory lane for a second consecutive year. Laird won the coveted Indy title last year driving his Supercharged ’63 Corvette past series champion Josh Hernandez in the finals.

“Winning the U.S. Nationals meant so much to us last year,” Laird said. “We’re going to do everything we can to defend the title, even if that means having to push our power plant a little harder.”

Laird has had a strong-running car all year, highlighted by a career-best 5.95-second run in St. Louis, but various mechanical issues have kept him from advancing past the first round of eliminations.

“We’ve had a few electrical problems on race day along with a clutch malfunction in Houston, but hopefully those troubles are behind us now,” Laird said. “Terry has been doing an outstanding job all year getting the car down the track and I’m looking for a strong finish this season.”

The tour has been idle since late June and Laird is anxious to get behind the wheel again. He is looking to make a strong push down the stretch in the final four races and move up from 16th in the JEGS ProMod Challenge standings.

“A win at Indy can make your year and it’s going to be fun trying to do it again,” Laird said. “Joe Mefford has done great work all year on the clutch and the rest of the crew has been working hard prepping the car between rounds so it would be nice to reward them with a U.S. Nationals title.”

Laird will be one of 24 Pro Mod drivers vying for honors at the 54th Annual MAC Tools U.S. Nationals which runs from Aug. 27-Sept. 1 in Indianapolis, Indiana.