Pro Modified made its debut 15 years ago in NHRA competition when the Glendora, Ca.-based sanctioning body, which had resisted the temptation to include the volatile doorslammer category in its lineup, finally relented and invited 24 drivers to compete in the first of five scheduled exhibitions.
Rickie Smith, a two-time NHRA Pro Modified champion, won the inaugural event by beating Kirk Kuhns in the final round. He had played around with Pro Modified Quick Eight events in the Carolinas and had run the IHRA events a time or two, but now with NHRA considering the class, even on an exhibition basis, found a way to get in on the ground floor of something big.
“It was a class that I could afford to run and be able to do so up front,” Smith recalled. “The Pro Stock thing was starting to get a little bit out of hand at that time and I saw it but I didn’t have the sponsorship to run Pro Stock. When this Pro Mod thing came along, I jumped into it not long after it started because I liked the big motors, the challenge of wild and crazy cars and it just kind of fell into my hands.”
The Pro Modified debut had an invitation list of 24 of the wildest and most on the edge race vehicles known to doorslammer racing. It took only six pairs into qualifying before the class showed its true colors.
Johnny Rocca owned a supercharged 1949 Mercury sponsored by the Mohegan Sun casino and driven by Paul Athey.
Athey had no sooner passed the tree when the Mercury made a turn right, crossing the centerline and sideswiping the Corvette driven by Pro Mod pioneer Ronnie Hood. The impact was the most normal aspect of the situation.
Athey returned to his lane as if nothing had happened. Hood backed up to the starting line and at the flash of the green, the victim of the hit and run driver went to the early provisional No. 1.
Top Alcohol Funny Car racer Jay Payne sat back and watched the incident, and just like many NHRA fans and racers saw the immediate entertainment value in these cars.
“I sat there and watched this 1949 Mercury do a burnout, swap lanes – come over in the other lane, hit the other car – go back to his lane, and back up,” Payne explained. “Then this guy in an Indian suit ran around the car, tapped on it and then they made the run.
“I looked over at Brad [Anderson, team owner] and said, ‘We gotta get one of those.”
Smith qualified on the bubble of the debut event with a 6.337 elapsed time at 221.96. However, even for Smith, the event was far from normal.
Rains postponed the event until the next weekend, and unfortunately for all but four of the invited participants, the reschedule conflicted with the IHRA season-opener in Darlington, SC.
Smith raced the first weekend with a Corvette he’d sold to Kenny Koretsky. Koretsky was to take delivery of the car on the Monday after the event, leaving Smith to rush a new Dodge Viper into service.
Though Smith’s roots run deep in IHRA, there was no second thought where he was going to race on the conflicting weekend.
“The NHRA has basically always been the number 1 drag racing body,” said Smith. “The IHRA was very close with them back in the 1970s and halfway thru the 1980s but when Winston pulled out it pretty much split the sanctioning bodies to where one was a lot bigger than the other one. I wanted to go try to run the big one.”
And running the big one ensured he’d have a chance to be the first-ever winner – a feat he pulled off.
“You always want to be the first to anything most of the time unless you’re jumping off a cliff,” said Smith. “I’ve been the 1st to do a lot of things throughout my career and that’s what you strive for- to try to do that. I’m just tickled that I won the first and nobody else can say they won the first NHRA Pro Mod race because I did it.”
