Ty Tutterow’s late-season qualifying run continued Friday night at Virginia Motorsports Park, where the reigning Pro Boost world champion moved to the provisional No. 1 position at the PDRA World Finals.
Tutterow drove Justin Smith’s screw-blown Quik Fuel ’68 Camaro to a 3.560-second pass at 209.69 mph in the second qualifying session of the Pro Line Racing Brian Olson Memorial World Finals presented by ProCharger. If the run holds through Saturday’s final session, it will give Tutterow his fourth consecutive No. 1 qualifier in WS Construction Pro Boost presented by P2 Contracting and Ty-Drive.
Tutterow came into Friday carrying momentum from his PDRA ProStars victory Thursday night. He waited until the final pair of Pro Boost qualifying before putting nearly two hundredths between himself and the rest of the field.
The session was interrupted when John Doc suffered an apparent parts failure and crashed his ’69 “Cow-Maro,” making multiple contacts with the wall. Doc appeared to be OK but was transported to a nearby medical facility as a precaution.
The delay gave PDRA officials time to work on the racing surface, and Tutterow’s team responded to the changing conditions with a late adjustment.
“After that unfortunate incident with those guys, the track did get better,” Tutterow said. “They prepped the track. We ended up making a weight swing right before that run and it helped. That’s probably the best run this car’s ever made as far as an A-to-B smooth pass. I mean, it was a flawless run.”
Tim Paap took a different route to the provisional No. 1 position in Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous presented by Jerry Bickel Race Cars.
After struggling in the opening session, the 2024 Elite Top Sportsman championship runner-up returned in Q2 and ran a 3.621 at 207.46 mph in his Killin’ Time Racing Paap Auto Body ’16 Corvette. Paap made the run in the second pair, leaving most of the class with an opportunity to answer.
They didn’t.
“No, not at all,” Paap said when asked if tuner Jeffrey Barker changed the combination during the downtime. “It was the same tune-up that was in it when we rolled up. Barker didn’t make any changes at all. He’s the man.”
Paap’s 3.621 initially put him five hundredths clear of the field, but with several of the class’ established front-runners still waiting to run, he wasn’t ready to count it.
“I didn’t really know, because in Pro Nitrous, there’s some tough competition in there,” Paap said. “Usually there’s always a whole bunch of groupings of about four of us that are always together real close. You just never know until the whole field runs.”
The number survived through the final pair of Tommy Franklin and Amber Denton.
Jerry Morgano made Friday night’s biggest move in Liberty’s Gears Pro Street presented by KTR Drag Racing.
The longtime 10.5 racer went from the bottom of the qualifying order to the top with a 3.907 at 202.67 mph in his twin-turbo “Copperhead” ’02 Mustang. Morgano made the run in the opening pair of the second session after a difficult first attempt earlier Friday.
Even Morgano wasn’t expecting a .90.
“I thought it would be a good run, but I didn’t think it would run a .90,” Morgano said. “Coming up under the tower, my crew guy came and said that they were gonna prep, which they normally do for us – but they don’t typically spray. When they brought the sprayer out, he said to me, ‘Well, they’re gonna spray, so the track should be pretty damn good.’ I went 3.95 against Blake [Denton] last night, so I basically put that tune-up in it. I pulled a little timing out early on, and we picked up two numbers in the 60-foot, From there, the track was killer.”
J.C. Beattie Jr. held the provisional No. 1 position in PDRA Pro 632 presented by Mark Williams Enterprises, while Connor McGee led 1320 Fabrication Super Street presented by Brian’s Heating & Cooling.
The sportsman provisional leaders were Bruce Thrift in MagnaFuel Elite Top Sportsman presented by PAR Racing Engines, Tony Careccia in Greenbrier Excavating & Paving Elite Top Dragster, John Benoit in MagnaFuel Top Sportsman and Linzie Coleman in ATI Performance Top Dragster presented by TBM Brakes.
Griffin Davis paced PDRA Pro Jr. Dragster qualifying with a 7.901 against the class’ 7.90 index. The field included 42 drivers trying to qualify for 32 positions, with Ayden Christian sitting on the bump at 7.932.
Korbin Helms was perfect where it counted in Classic Graphix Top Jr. Dragster, cutting a .000 reaction time to claim the provisional No. 1 spot.
One qualifying session remains Saturday before the fields are set for the final eliminations of the 2026 Red Line Oil PDRA Drag Racing Series season.
