The NHRA has released the 2013 revisions to the rules in the Pro Mod category and while there is nothing crazy in what we saw, there are a couple of interesting tidbits in there to keep things interesting. The history of Pro Modified has always centered around the rules. For the longest time it was the blower guys yelling that the nitrous guys got a break, then the nitrous guys screaming about the blower guys, and now we’re in the era where those two camps are usually yelling at the turbo racers. It has kept the class fresh on the minds of drag racing fans that love the right amount of controversy with their tire smoke.

Here’s what the NHRA published on 12.12 –

Today NHRA released rule amendments for the 2013 NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series. The majority of these rule amendments were made in a continuing effort to maintain parity among the turbocharger, nitrous and supercharger combinations in the category.

The turbocharger combination will have a reduction in minimum weight from 2,700 to 2,650 pounds. Turbocharged cars will also be allowed to run any manufacturer’s turbocharger as long as it is no larger than 88mm and it meets SFI Spec 61.1. In addition, intercoolers will now be prohibited. To control the boost of these turbochargers, all cars must be outfitted with an NHRA specified boost controller. The maximum boost level setting will be controlled by NHRA officials.

Additionally the nitrous combination will now be allowed to use water injection while the supercharged cars will have no rule changes associated with parity.

All of these NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series rule amendments will go into effect March 14, 2013 at the NHRA Gatornationals held at Auto-Plus Raceway at Gainesville.

Please check NHRAracer.com under the rules section to see all of the NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series rules as well as other 2013 NHRA Rulebook amendments.

Note: The mandatory boost controller is manufactured by Hyperaktive Performance Solutions, part number: PMBL mandatory. To order your boost controller, please contact:

Joe Oplawski

Hyperaktive Performance Solutions

[email protected]

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We found it interesting that the NHRA reduced the minimum weight of the turbo cars by a fifty pounds, allowed racers to source their turbos from anywhere (so long as they meet the SFI spec and are 88mm), banned intercoolers, and mandated a spec boost controller along with telling the racers that NHRA will decide how much boost they can run. How much boost they will be allowed isn’t mentioned, whether or not it will change from race to race isn’t mentioned, and we’re really curious to know what the turbo racers think of this.

The blower crowd cam away completely unscathed for what may be the first time in the history of pro mod racing. No weight tweaks, overdrive changes, blower designs banned, etc. That’s pretty freaky. Like they say in the movies, “It’s quiet…too quiet.” We’ll see what the supercharged racers do with another year running the same combo. The knowledge and experience of this year will directly carry to the next. That has to be a help.

Nitrous racers can now run water injection and it will be interesting to see who adopts this onto their cars. We know guys who run water/meth injection on the street in comparatively mild cars but we don’t know of anyone full tilt race cars with big inch engines and a thousand plus horse worth of nitrous flowing through them using water injection. Should be mighty interesting as usual!