Peter Norton had never so much as watched a Pro Modified race in person when he took his family to the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod at Bradenton Motorsports Park in February 2025. Less than two years later, the Indiana businessman has a Winter Series championship, multiple event victories, a growing stable of Pro Mod cars, and some of the sport’s most recognizable drivers competing under his Hurricane Motorsports banner.
It’s been a remarkable introduction to drag racing for Norton, whose rookie campaign came to a painful halt in a crash at Tulsa Raceway Park in late October. It was the second serious setback for the team in the closing months of the season, following a crash involving teammate Paige Coughlin at Flying H Drag Strip just weeks earlier.
But neither incident has done much to diminish Norton’s enthusiasm for the sport or the ambitious racing operation he’s assembled in scarcely a year’s time.
“I go in everything I do full bore,” Norton says. “It’s just the way it is.”
A seventh-generation farmer from Franklin, Indiana, Norton has spent much of his life managing and growing businesses. He founded Hurricane Express, now Hurricane Specialized, with a single truck in 2002, and he and his wife own other businesses in the Franklin area.
His motorsports roots run equally deep. Norton began competitive tractor pulling at age 16 and remained active in the sport for decades, competing through 2025.
An initial venture into no-prep drag racing left him wanting something faster, and his friendship with fellow tractor pullers Stan and Tracy Shelton, who had ventured into Pro Mod, pointed him toward the class.
After watching the World Series of Pro Mod, Norton purchased a screw-supercharged car, earned his competition license and eventually connected with Pro Line Racing and veteran tuner Rickie Jones. A brief period experimenting with a Pro 275 car led to the purchase of Jeff Rudolf’s former “Ghetto Sleigh” ’69 Camaro for the Drag Illustrated Winter Series.
His first pass in the car came at the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals in December 2025, where qualifying against a field of established Pro Mod racers was the immediate goal.
“I just said, man, if we just go there and get some practice laps, and there’s 90 cars here, if we qualify, that’d be awesome,” he shares.
Norton made the field and lost in the opening round, but returned for the U.S. Street Nationals with an improved combination and advanced to the semifinals before falling to Derek Menholt.
Entering the World Series of Pro Mod finale 10th in points, Norton wasn’t even considering the championship until several leading contenders fell out of eliminations. Eventually, he and Randy Weatherford found themselves paired in a semifinal matchup that would decide the title.
Norton won, clinching the Winter Series championship and adding to his Rookie of the Year honors. He advanced to the event final, where Aaron Stanfield defeated him for the $150,000 winner’s prize.
“We weren’t even thinking about it,” Norton recalled of the championship.
The success carried into the spring and summer months. Norton initially planned to concentrate on the IHRA’s new Pro Mod program, winning its opening event at GALOT Motorsports Park with a holeshot victory over Jason Harris.
When that series came to an abrupt end, Hurricane Motorsports shifted its attention toward the Mid-West Drag Racing Series, where Norton was a competitive top-five entry (he was third in the Pro Mod standings but would miss the season finale at Xtreme Raceway Park).
He also converted his original Camaro for quarter-mile competition and made his NHRA Pro Mod debut at the prestigious U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. Despite the considerably different demands of quarter-mile racing, Norton qualified for the field and won his opening-round matchup before losing to Billy Banaka in the second round.
It was another milestone in a season that had already taken him from complete newcomer to a championship-winning Pro Mod driver.
The team’s momentum wasn’t without setbacks. Coughlin crashed during the Mid-West Drag Racing Series stop at Flying H Drag Strip, damaging her JEGS-backed Camaro.
Then at Tulsa in October, Norton qualified No. 1 and won the completion of a previously postponed Flying H event, while Kye Kelley, driving another Hurricane Motorsports Camaro, captured the second event. Norton again qualified atop the field for the regularly scheduled event before his weekend ended against the wall during eliminations.
Norton said the car had developed an unusual tendency to shake well downtrack, something that had also occurred on an earlier pass. During his first-round matchup with Eric Halvorson, the car shook again, and after Norton attempted to recover, it turned sideways into the wall.
He suffered fractures to three vertebrae in his back and spent four days hospitalized in Tulsa.
“Everybody says there’s two types of Pro Mod drivers: one that hasn’t wrecked and going to, and one already has. So I guess I moved into the second category,” he says. ”It’s just a bump in the road. It’s nothing that’s gonna’ change my trajectory.”
Norton is hopeful of returning to competition for the opening round of the new Cold War Series, the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals at Bradenton, Dec. 3-6. His participation will depend on his recovery and medical clearance, and the series has provisions allowing a substitute driver if he isn’t ready.
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Meanwhile, Hurricane Motorsports has continued expanding. Coughlin joined the operation during the summer, competing in one of Norton’s Camaros, while Kelley recently debuted in a car purchased from Victor Alvarez.
Kelley is committed to the entire upcoming winter series, with Norton hoping to extend the partnership beyond that.
Chevy Reeves is another addition, with Norton acquiring a separate car for a lease arrangement that will include the trio of Bradenton races, the World Series of Pro Mod and March’s M&M Transmission Pro Mod event at XRP.
The growing operation is supported by a full-time staff that includes Jones, who oversees tuning and chassis setup, car chief Paul Nichols and Chaz Owens. Norton sees opportunities to develop the program into a sustainable racing business through sponsorships, partnerships and car leases.
“I feel like our eighth-mile game is pretty strong right now. I think we can go into any eighth-mile race and be competitive, without a doubt. We’ve got a great team and good equipment.”
“If we can get sponsors and get drivers and people want to lease on with us, and we can make it a successful business along with have fun, then that’s just the ultimate goal,” he said.
Norton is considering a mixture of Mid-West Drag Racing Series, PDRA and select NHRA appearances in 2027, along with another winter championship pursuit. For someone who began last year knowing virtually nothing about drag racing, he has accomplished more in one season than many drivers manage in several.
And despite the team’s two difficult crashes late in the year, neither has overshadowed what has otherwise been a remarkably successful debut season.
“Good Lord willing, we’ll just keep going fast and going around.”
