Drag Illustrated Issue 149, October 2019 | Page 90

WORLD SERIES OF PRO MOD 2019 Missing from this year’s race were a handful of WSOPM stars sidelined by carnage in the weeks leading up to the event. Marc Caruso, a fan-fa- vorite in 2018’s WSOPM burnout contest, went through a devastating crash at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tennessee, in early June. A couple weeks later, two-time NHRA Pro Stock world champion Erica Enders escaped a horrific fire in her turbocharged Elite Motor- sports Camaro at the NHRA Sum- mit Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio. Even Mike Bowman, the winner of the inaugural WSOPM in 2017, was still on the sidelines after a crash at the St. Louis NHRA race in September last year. A mid-season rules package change for NHRA Pro Mod com- petitors led several other potential WSOPM competitors to sit out the race, leaving event promoter Wes Buck with an 11-car field. Even though he was five cars short of his intended 16-car show, Buck and the Bandimere Speedway team forged forward. New faces like nitro racing veteran Terry Haddock and West Coast Pro Mod stars Ed Thornton and Rick Snavely jumped at the chance to be a part of the race, as did Premier Street Car As- sociation promoter Mel Roth and his Xtreme Drag Radial racers. Many more new faces joined the show in the Top Dragster and Top Sportsman classes, as the winner’s purse was raised to $10,000 for the MagnaFuel Pro Star 16 and Quick Star 16 Shootouts present- ed by Menholt Auto Group. A to- tal of over 70 cars entered the two shootouts for the chance to race for never-before-seen payouts for the fast bracket classes. Finally, a slew of local racers rounded out the program in Sunoco King Street and the JR Race Cars 7.90 Shootout. These racers, who race on a weekly basis at Bandimere Speedway during the track’s popular points races, had the opportunity to race in front of over 10,000 specta- tors while sharing the staging lanes with some of the biggest names in Pro Mod racing. Each of the drivers and teams participating in the World Series of Pro Mod had a unique story to tell about their WSOPM journey. Many of them started with late nights and long drives. Some ended in the first round of eliminations. Others were spoiled by parts failures. And one was capped off by a trip to the bank to deposit a check for $100,000. While some of these stories will remain relegated to late-night bench racing sessions, the D rag I llustrateD team worked to cap- ture as many of them as possible to print on the pages of the third annual World Series of Pro Mod Issue, our tribute to the people who make the World Series of Pro Mod such a one-of-a-kind drag racing spectacle. ‘STEVIE FAST’ COMES THROUGH One of the most common questions going into the WSOPM weekend was, “Will ‘Stevie Fast’ Jackson be there?” The fan-favorite driver answered Tuesday morning when he posted a video of his team loading up and heading to Denver. Jackson delivered long, smoky burnouts and a track-record pass for blown Pro Mods during his third annual visit to Thunder Mountain. 90 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com Issue 149