With the IHRA Spring Nationals a few weeks off and the press machine working up to speed to promote the race, I got to thinking about Harold Martin’s M4 Pro Mod. The car made its debut at the Mardi Gras Nationals in early March to mixed reviews and a sub- par performance. I just can’t get this thing out of my mind, and not because I love it so much. It’s the opposite reason really. I think that the car is bad for the future of Pro Mod.

I have nothing but respect for Harold Martin, especially what he has accomplished in both his racing endeavors and his professional life at GM and with his own company. I actually admire the guy for having the gusto to see this idea of his M4 car to fruition. I just don’t think it has a place in the world of “mainstream” Pro Mod. As an outlaw car, match racer, exhibition runner, or other fringe competitor I think it is perfect, but it totally flies in the face of what Pro Mod has historically meant to drag racing.

Pro Mods at base should look like mass-produced cars. Have they gotten cartoonish over the years? Sure they have, but you can look at a 1941 Willys Pro Mod and know what you are looking at; the same can be said for a 1963 Corvette, 1968 Camaro, the new 1970 Camaros, and others. Despite being stretched, sectioned, chopped, and otherwise edited, they maintain a recognizable profile and some of the same aerodynamic inefficiencies of their original counterparts.

I feel as though the M4 car takes the class and steers it onto the same tracks as the bizarre world of Funny Car with bodies that resemble nothing that has ever been mass produced, on this planet anyway.   

It’s also curious that the IHRA allowed the car to run. Historically they have been the sanctioning body of record with regard to Pro Modified. They were the first to foster the class and they were the place to prove your mettle for years. The splintering off of racers to the NHRA series, as well as the rise of the ADRL, has definitely weakened the IHRA’s role as the leader in Pro Modified, but they have the most history with the class. It’s that history which seems to have been ignored when the decision was made to allow the M4 into the fray.

In 1992 Scotty Cannon took a Funny Car body and literally cut doors in it, mounted it to a chassis, and put a big blower motor in it. The car was outlawed after one season of competition. It was not in the “spirit” of the rules and was seen as a car that would have taken the class into the wrong direction.

Back in late 2007 the IHRA announced that several late-model bodies would not be legal to be run in Pro Mod. Those bodies were primarily the models being run in the Pro Stock category and the popular thinking at the time was that IHRA saw a wave of late-model bodies coming into Pro Mod and fan confusion would result. Having a stack of Pro Mods that look like Pro Stocks would not be good for the class.
With those two examples being cited, why the Hell was this car green lighted?

The obvious answer is for the publicity it has and will continue to generate for the IHRA. This car being at the track generates buzz, and buzz may generate ticket sales, something that every racing organization is looking to do these days.

The second answer, in my opinion, is that it’s because Harold Martin is the guy running the car. Martin is a solid racer with loads of experience but he is not known as a guy who is blowing everyone’s doors off. In terms of being a threat to win every time he pulls through the gate, that’s not him. If this car was to be campaigned by the likes of Shannon Jenkins or Jim Halsey, I don’t think the IHRA would have touched it with a ten foot pole.  

There have been game-changing cars in the drag racing, some for the better, and many for the worse. Don Garlits’ rear-engine dragster is certainly one for the better as driver safety was improved immeasurably. It actually introduced another wave of innovation to Top Fuel.

“Ohio” George Montgomery’s Mustang Gasser, in my opinion, was one for the worse. Pressured by Ford to run a Ford body because he was running a Cammer engine, Montgomery put a 1967 Mustang body on a 1933 Willys frame (to meet class rules). The car was a success and eventually drove the class to make the wholesale change to late-model bodies. Thus, it was a class of slow Funny Cars with doors. That car marked the beginning of the end for the class.

I’m not sure is Martin is allowed to sell his bodies to competitors at this point, but if he is and the right person gets a hold of one, Pandora’s box is already open and there’s no closing it.

I’m not a guy who is locked in to the past or who fears change in drag racing. Hell, I don’t really mind the 1,000-foot stuff that much. It just strikes me as a bad move to repeat some history that has shown itself as being bad for the long term health of a very popular class of car. Pro Mod is the modern extension of the Gasser wars, no doubt about it. It would suck to see it die with a whimper like it did in the past. I think the IHRA does not realize that the short-term buzz may cause the long-term silence of Pro Mod.