What is it about Pro Modifieds that seems to have set the drag racing world on fire? Could it be their 4,000-horsepower engines with minimal restrictions? Record ETs in the 3.40s on an eighth-mile track? What about the body styles that are easily identifiable by make and model? The drivers with standout personalities? And without a doubt, those massive payouts are enticing, too.

“Pro Mod racing has become very popular due to its competitive nature,” observed Tyler Crossnoe, series director of PDRA Drag Racing Series, Fredericksburg, Virginia. “Years ago, there were the ‘favorites’ who you kind of knew would win before the race ever started. Now, you have 75-plus cars in the country that could win any event they attend. The competitive nature has driven it to be one of the hardest classes to compete in, but one of the most exciting.”

Pro Mod racing “keeps getting bigger,” observed Keith Haney, owner and promoter of the Mid-West Drag Racing Series in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and driver of a 2025 C7 Corvette Pro Mod named Black Widow. He said more people are joining the class’s ranks due to its “characters” and the fact that the cars “look like cars you drive and buy on Monday.”

He credits the popularity of Street Outlaws drivers and their transition to Pro Mods. “Everyone wants to be in Pro Mod. If you ask a top sportsman guy, which is where I started, I wanted to run Pro Mod. And now I’m running Pro Mod.”

Competitors from Street Outlaws are definitely making a statement in the Pro Mod ranks. Shawn Ellington, also known as “Murder Nova,” drives a 1969 Camaro Pro Mod named Blue. He described the class as “relatable to people because they’re door cars. And you don’t get a faster door car than a Pro Mod. They still sort of look like a real car. Yeah, they may be a little bit narrowed, and a little bit stretched, but other than that, you can look at a 1969 Camaro and go, ‘Okay, that’s a ’69 Camaro.’ It still looks like a real car. And just the excitement around them. I mean, who doesn’t like the fastest door cars in the country? Wheels up at 660 feet. That’s what all the hype and all the excitement are about. And cars that have the ability to go sub .890 to the 60 foot is just unbelievable.

“Then there’s the fact that somebody from where I came from can jump in one of those cars and go out and rub elbows with the baddest dudes on the planet. I got into it because I wanted to prove that I belong. Every time I go somewhere, I may even have a small chip on my shoulder. But I feel like every time we unload that car and every time I let go of the button on that car, I’ve got something to prove. And that’s what I’m trying to do is prove it,” he added.

Pro Mod is “exciting just because of what the cars are and how fast they go,” said fellow Street Outlaws alumni Scott Taylor. He drives the 1969 Camaro Pro Mod known as Chee Doe, a nod to his car’s sponsor, Keith’s Superstores, and its cheetah logo. “It’s not just a pass that goes down through there and lights a number on the board. It is wild from start to finish. I mean, you take 4,000-plus horsepower and stick it in a door car. To me, it doesn’t get any more exciting than that. The fans go wild when the Pro Mods run. Heck, when we start up a Pro Mod, it just gives you that feeling that it’s time to go racing.”

Why Pro Mod

Signs of the racing off-season being in full swing were evident when the motorsports community gathered at the PRI Show recently in December. Many teams are putting the finishing touches on their race cars for the 2026 season. But that’s not the case for Pro Mod. This class is currently in high season with the Drag Illustrated Winter Series, which is a three-race series consisting of the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals, which took place in December, followed by the US Street Nationals in January, and concluding with the World Series of Pro Mod at the end of February, all at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Bradenton, Florida. This coveted eighth-mile invitation-only event filled the staging lanes with 90 of the country’s, or possibly the world’s, best Pro Mod race cars as they compete for more than $300,000 in payouts, and a historic opportunity to earn a $1 million bonus if the same driver wins all three races.

Several of our sources pointed to one main reason for the rising popularity of Pro Mod drag racing: Wes Buck.

“Wes Buck has done a really good job bringing some light to what I feel is one of the best classes in the world,” said Taylor. “He’s just exposed how awesome it is.”

As owner and operator of Drag Illustrated and the Drag Illustrated Winter Series, Buck’s personal drag racing passion is Pro Modified, he admitted. As a result, in 2017 he and his team held their first Drag Illustrated-produced event at Bandimere Speedway in Colorado. The invitational format of the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod was designed to “control the cast of characters and make sure that we had the right people involved with what we were doing,” Buck explained. “We also introduced the notion of big racing, where we put up $100,000 to win. This was absolutely unheard of. The biggest Pro Mod races in the country at that time were paying $7,000 to $10,000 to win. We basically introduced this invitational format, big money, crazy, over-the-top, pomp and circumstance, a level of production value that the sport of drag racing hadn’t previously seen.”

When the pandemic struck in 2020, it put a halt to the event, which allowed Buck and his team to pause and reimagine.

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