The Professional Racers Organization [PRO] has long sought a showcase event to promote their sensory entertainment overload. Recently, in a Zoom press conference, they announced their inaugural PRO Superstar Shootout for February 8-10, 2024, at Bradenton Motorsports Park. The event is designed to be a high-stakes, big-money race featuring the stars of Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock. 

The PRO Superstar Shootout will present a total purse of $1.3 million, with $250,000 going to the Top Fuel and Funny Car winners and $125,000 going to the Pro Stock winner. The event will be live-streamed on FloRacing. 

“Drag racing is obviously a super exciting sport,” said PRO President Alan Johnson. “This event is going to give us the opportunity to showcase that excitement in different ways with live-streaming, and we are going to change up the format a bit. Having elite professional racers compete in this should be an outstanding event. We are really looking forward to it.

“It should blast out some excitement to carry us through into the NHRA drag racing season and expose drag racing to the world.”

The event was born out of inspiration from the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Modified from last year, which featured large payouts in a shootout format for the professional doorslammer categories. 

“Why did we do this? Why not?” Tony Stewart said. “Why not do something big like this? I mean, we’ve seen in other silos in motorsports really big events this year, last year. There’s continuing to be bigger and bigger events in motorsports, and drag racing deserves a big, big, big event. This is an opportunity for the board to do something different that’s done outside the box to really showcase the sport of drag racing by hosting an epic big event.

“If you’re having other silos in motorsports that are doing it and you’re not doing it, there’s probably a problem. The fact that the PRO board all united together and said, ‘This is an idea that we all have, and everybody said, Yeah, we’re all in.” 

“This is why we’re doing this. It’s just to create excitement, to create buzz, to show people what drag racing’s all about, the people that may not know what drag racing’s about. This is an opportunity to introduce them to it before the season starts and to do something that’s never been done before. Other forms of motorsports are getting their spot in the spotlight and their time for a big race; drag racing has deserved that opportunity as well.

This event marks the first time since the IHRA raced in Bradenton in 1999 that a targeted nitro competition has beenpresented. To prepare the track for an onslaught of nitro-burners PRO VP Chad Head, an accomplished track prep specialist for the race series before he started working in the race team sector, has been tasked with getting the track ready.

Initially, Head explained, will be moving the scoreboard out further from the track and reconfiguring some of the retaining walls.

Head confirmed that Kurt Johnson of Total Venue Concepts and the track’s specialist Wade Rich will be in charge of prepping the track throughout the event. 

The event marks a huge milestone for Victor Alvarez, Bradenton Motorsports Park track owner. 

“It’s a really big deal to bring an event of this magnitude to Bradenton,” Alvarez said. “This has been a goal that we’ve worked towards, myself and Wade Rich, as Dave Lansberry [Track Manager]. We’ve all said we want to get to a point where we can host a race like this and have cars that people only really see on TV. It’s really cool for our local fans. 

“Pro Mod has always been our thing, but to see some of these names and some of these cars at a small, hometown track like this is just really cool. It’s rewarding. It feels like all the upgrades we’ve done and a couple of years of just working really hard to have really good events is paying off.”

The PRO Superstar Shootout will be an invitation-only race, with invitees to be announced very soon. Drivers will run four qualifying sessions to determine the eight-car fields in Top Fuel and Funny Car and the 16-car field in Pro Stock. Random chip draws will determine the pairings for all rounds of eliminations up to the final rounds.

The Professional Racers Organization was founded in 1991 as a non-profit and serves the Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock teams. It represents 33 team owners, 47 drivers and teams. Providing insurance and representing the drivers to the sanctioning bodies has been the stated goal of the organization.