Dirt
New Holeshot King
Joey Oksas exceeds expectations in Mid-West Drag Racing Series Pro Mod debut By Nate Van Wagnen
Joey Oksas had big shoes to fill
when he stepped into his father Scott ’ s twin-turbocharged ‘ 67 Mustang – size 15 to be exact . But the 23-year-old wheelman proved he was up to the task , using a pair of holeshot wins to race to a runner-up finish in his Pro Mod debut at the Mid-West Drag Racing Series race at St . Louis in August .
Oksas hadn ’ t driven the car before testing started on Thursday of the event . He had raced Jr . Dragsters when he was young and ran a nitrousassisted , big-block Chevy-powered Mustang in X275 for two years , so it was a big step up when the father and son duo collectively decided it was time for Joey to get behind the wheel of the Pro Mod Mustang , which Scott drove to a $ 100,000 victory at the 2019 Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod .
“ It was kind of a last-minute decision , but my dad and I both felt comfortable with me driving at St . Louis – it ’ s a nice , flat track , with a nice , long shutdown and it ’ s well-lit ,” Oksas says .
Oksas insists he wasn ’ t nervous when he went to make the first few passes in the Jeff Piercetuned car .
“ I feel like driving is second nature and I feel very calm and collected inside the car ,” Oksas says . “ I was a little tense on the first run , but it ’ s like riding a bike . Once you do a burnout , you know how to do a burnout . It ’ s just going through the motions . The buttons are a little different , staging the car is different , but I just tried to stay calm ,
cool and collected . I made the best decisions that I could behind the wheel and I feel like I did a pretty decent job driving .”
Qualifying didn ’ t go as planned , as Oksas missed the Friday night session and didn ’ t improve on Q1 ’ s 3.829 at 210.28 during the third and final session . He missed the field by just one thousandth of a second , but he was inserted into the No . 11 spot when Todd Moyer reported breakage .
“ It was a roller coaster , man ,” Oksas says . “ We missed the night session the night before due to a little bit of human error . So we had to go for it on Q3 on Saturday morning . We just missed it . I was kind of bummed out right away . I knew we still had the Slammers class to enter to try to do something there . Then literally within about 45 minutes that news got flipped around and we found out that we were in . Sometimes it ’ s better to be lucky than good , and luck was definitely on our side that weekend .”
Oksas took advantage of the opportunity . He used a sizable holeshot and a 3.785 to beat Jim Whiteley ’ s 3.741 in Stevie Jackson ’ s “ Shadow 2.0 ”
PHOTOS : KYLE CHRIST , COLE ROKOSKY
26 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated . com Issue 160