Thank goodness for diversions. 

For Mountain Motor Pro Stock racer JR Carr, a farmer in his daytime job, running his large displacement Pro Stocker is about as good as it gets. Saturday, at the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., Carr thundered to the No. 1 qualifying position with a 6.305 elapsed time at  221.74 miles per hour. 

"We're so happy and my guys work so hard, and Frank [Gugliotta] puts everything he has into this program," Carr said. "I'm the lucky guy that gets to strap a helmet on and try to be a race car guy, even though I'm a farmer and just enjoying. It's an accomplishment and it's not easy to do. We were actually just leaving dinner and we were told we are the Pro Mod of Pro Stock. So, that's a compliment if you think about it."

The peculiar thing about Carr's statement is the Mountain Motor Pro Stock division was one of the categories that led to the birth of Pro Modified. Back in the mid-1980s, a handful of IHRA MMPS racers who couldn't keep up with the pace of the frontrunners put nitrous oxide on their cars and began running in the Top Sportsman, which eventually became Pro Modified. 

The MMPS division runs at a handful of NHRA events and primarily on weekends when the conventional (500-inch Pro Stock) are off. They are torquey, with carburetors, and have hood scoops. They are also plenty fast, running as fast as the 6-teens at over 220 miles per hour. 

Carr has been on both sides of the aisle, running the 500-inch Pro Stocks and his current beast, which he says has plenty more left in reserve. His run, he believed, could have been a 6.29.

"Sometimes you hit on something, and we'll find ten horsepower instead of two," Carr explained. "But we've got to a point now that we honestly, we take timing out, which is good because the motor lives longer, and it's a little bit happier. If you give it full timing, you are always on the ragged edge. If you have one point too much of ratio, you're probably not going to get down because these things have so much torque, and they lift the front end up for so far and it's a real fine line. 

"The last two years, we've been running a couple of degrees timing less than you would expect. I know on the 500-inch guys; you get every ounce of everything that's possible."

Carr holds the record for these cars with a 6.179 elapsed time. 

"If you cleaned it up [1.02 60-foot], would've been a 6.15," Carr said. "So yeah, it's there much more than that. And then weather was obviously really good, but we feel like we could have run a 6.15 on that same run, which is pretty good from a 6.179, because it wasn't the prettiest. I mean, we obviously have the graph and all the numbers and it was good, but it wasn't as good as it could have been."  

One could only imagine if the MMPS cars get atmospheric conditions like those earlier this season in Gainesville, if one wanted to air it out, are 6.0s in range?

"That's pushing it," Carr countered. "We only have so much torque and horsepower, but they're the gains are there. The cars are better. The suspension's better, tires. I mean every little thousands helps, but hey, I'm not going to say it won't happen."

Carr opens today's first round of eliminations against Bill Neri.