An excerpt from Pro Modified: Two Decades of Thrills - READ THE FULL HISTORY OF PRO MODIFIED HERE
 

In addition to the prize money for winning the first Pro Mod exhibition event during 1989 in Atco, NJ, Bill Kuhlmann was rewarded the No. 1 designation for 1990. He later had to change the number to 1000 after the sanctioning body folded under pressure from critics protesting the decision.

There isn’t a mention in the IHRA’s media guide. And in the leading drag racing publications, there were only small blurbs in the news sections.

However, to the most diehard of drag racing fans, October 28 and 29, 1989, represents more than just another IHRA World Championship Series points event in Atco, NJ. This event represented an introduction to Pro Modified with a 16-car exhibition event. There were no points at stake, just the honor of earning the No. 1 designation on the winner’s car for the inaugural season and the $4,000 winner’s purse.

Just days earlier, the IHRA had officially announced the name of the class in an issue of Drag Review as well as the rules for the class and was en route to the printer when the race was being conducted.

The flyer for the event listed the class as simply “Pro 16”.

“Ever since I came on the scene in 1987 and watched Kuhlmann run the 200, I fell into this whole excitement and as a west coast guy, we always had a lot of racing excitement out there,” said Don Gillespie, then a freelance photographer and writer on assignment at the event. “But, seeing this whole thing unfold and the excitement on the faces of those people in an area that didn’t experience a lot of that was priceless. It was really big on a race-to-race basis. This was the center of the drag racing universe for this period of time.”

“When the race started, there was a very positive feeling throughout the place,” added Ted Jones, former IHRA VP of Operations. “Everybody was up and excited about the event. We felt like we were on the cusp of something really big.”

However, one run on race day would forever cast a pall on the event.

Walter Henry, one of the proponents of the supercharged combination in the new Pro Modified class, was fatally injured during an elimination run. Multiple witnesses confirmed that Henry lost control of his Corvette when a tire got into the grass recovery area between the track and the retaining wall. His car put tires into the grass and when he wrestled the car back onto the asphalt, it crossed lanes, went airborne and t-boned one of the scoreboard beams. Henry died instantly of massive internal injuries.

Lane Green, in the opposite lane, had experienced tire shake early in the run and lifted. Had he been alongside of Henry, the accident could have been a two-car crash.

What few people knew is that last race was to be the final one for Henry, who had planned to retire and hand over the driving chores to his son Gary.

This is the last known photo of Walter Henry taken by Don Gillespie before the driver's death at the Atco Exhibition event. Henry had planned to run the race and then retire from driving. His son Gary Henry was to begin licensing shortly after the event.

“I had mixed emotions about leaving that place when I pulled out and saw Walter’s rig sitting over there like a ghost," said Bill Kuhlmann. "It was really emotional. You get to win the first race and a friend gets killed. All of my circuits were overloaded that day.”

Gillespie can remember the unintended symbolism that went along with staging a race at that point in the season. The drive from Atco back to his home in Bristol, Tenn., served as a reminder.

“There was an eerie feeling about that whole weekend and the experience,” said Gillespie. “It was just before Halloween and all of the houses and everywhere were decorated with skeletons and various things associated with death. That whole thing made it eerie. Knowing that a good friend has just died violently and seeing all of those images just made me sick to my stomach.”

Kuhlmann went on to win that first race, beating Gordy Hmiel, driver of Scott Shafiroff’s Over the Hill Gang Pontiac. Ironically, a few years later Hmiel would lose his life in a plane crash.

Jones decreed that the winner of the event would be awarded the No. 1 designation for the inaugural season.

“And I relished that moment too,” Kuhlmann added.

The elation lasted all of one race when Jones, bowing to pressure from competitors in the class, made Kuhlmann adjust his windshield number to reflect the number 1000.
 

The late Gordie Hmiel finished runner-up that day to Bill Kuhlmann. Hmiel would lose his life a little over two years later in a plane crash.

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