Sometimes people think that drag racers fall out of the sky. People with piles of money that just magically appear with a car to compete in. Those people are morons. Everyone who has ever done a damn thing in this sport has gotten their spot with blood, sweat, and tears. This video, which serves to highlight an IHRA Factory Modified showdown in Dallas, really lays out the class perfectly. For lack of a better term this was a no-holds barred version of pro stock with tiny small block engines. As you will see in this video, there was loads of talent populating this class and some of that talent is still racing today. Current pro mod racer Rick Hord is profiled and Tim Freeman of the KB Racing pro stock team is showed as a talented teenager.
The IHRA’s Bret Kepner and drag racing legend Jon Lundberg bring the action from this awesome event and the sound in itself is a show. The cars leave the starting line at more than 10,000 RPM and the majority of them did it off of a clutch pedal and yanked their own gears heading down course.
This is a killer video featuring cars with single four barrel small blocks that were turning low 8s in the 1980s. We’d go into the controversy that this class caused the NHRA but it ain’t really worth it because when Billy Meyer sold the IHRA it was not long for the world in the state we see it here. This is a fantastic video.
Nothing better than scream of a high RPM NA small block! Sub 8.5 with a 300ci NA small block with a single 760 cam 4160 carb? That’s still impressive today? Would love to see inside the ports on the heads. Guessing they used tons of epoxy to reshape the runners.
Any racecar with three pedals gets my vote.
And……. shifting gears for the win………..I loved calling stick cars when I was announcing, absolute crowd pleasers. Plus how can your day not get better after seeing anything in Castrol colours?