(Photos by David Whealon – DW Photos) – Mike Castellana and Frank Manzo earned the first J&A Service Pro Mod Wally at the 4-Wide Nationals last weekend and boy did they earn it. As has been the case for the last couple of seasons, the qualifying and eliminations action was insane. This was the first time in drag racing history that pro mods were run in a 4-wide format and the drivers proved themselves every bit the professionals that we know they are. The drivers all came to a “staging school” on Thursday evening at the track where Alan Reinhart and a couple of others talked them through the process of getting in to the beams properly four abreast. While it all looks so simple, it can be a soup sandwich at times. It wasn’t for these guys. They crushed it.
With four qualifying sessions instead of the typical three, racers really got after it in the hot and soupy air of Charlotte. The list of non-qualifiers was almost equal to the list of cars that actually made the show. All-star heroes like Shannon Jenkins were not racing on Sunday. It was mental.
Along with the awesome racing and four wide action, seldom seen J&A Service series racer Mike Bowman showed up and ran the second fastest speed in the history of the category at over 258mph. The speed record has stood strong since 2011 and despite the weather conditions, Bowman came within a couple tenths of a mile per hour of actually grabbing it for himself in his turbocharged Chevelle.
It was one of the most memorable weekends of NHRA pro mod racing ever and to top it off, after the win Manzo said that it was one of the crowning moments of his career to tune Mike Castellana to the win at Charlotte. The drivers all loved it (especially those that qualified) and seeing the first five second “quad” tear down the track was pretty awesome!
Click the images below to see them in full-size and then scroll to see them all!
4 wide is a perfect format for pm. PM should not have had a quota and qualified 32 cars. Even if 48 cars had shown up, that is only 12 quads in qualifying and 8 in eliminations. Far less pairs than at traditional race. Great PM race again. Frank and Mike look tough and are the favorite to win the title right now, but that yellow vette closes the year out strongly in the past. Surprised by the galot team struggles and how well Larry Morgan is running. It seemed to me that brad and Jay had a hard time qualifying the last few years. If the weather is as predicted in Atlanta, we will see a record bump (80-82) and maybe a run faster than 5.685.