The leading Pro Modified nitrous engine builders agree this weekend’s Shakedown at E’town outlaw drag race will produce some of the quickest and fastest nitrous doorslammer passes in the history of doorslammers. The cool, sea-level conditions at Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ, are expected to be conducive to possibly the quickest and fastest lap in nitrous-injected history.

David Reher, engine builder for the Awesome/Al-Anabi Pro Modified team, had two of his clients win titles [ADRL Pro Nitrous, NHRA GSA Pro Modified] in what has been arguably the quickest and fastest season for the nitrous doorslammers. If the track conditions are present at this weekend’s Shakedown, the nitrous cars could reach uncharted territory.

“I think you’ll see 5.80s,” Reher predicted. “I can already see where just a good run can get you a 5.88 or 5.89 in NHRA trim and then you know with some of the things that are in progress I'm thinking you're gonna see another .03 or .04 basically.”

The leading Pro Modified nitrous engine builders agree this weekend’s Shakedown at E’town outlaw drag race will produce some of the quickest and fastest nitrous doorslammer passes in the history of doorslammers. The cool, sea-level conditions at Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ, are expected to be conducive to possibly the quickest and fastest lap in nitrous-injected history.

David Reher, engine builder for the Awesome/Al-Anabi Pro Modified team, had two of his clients win titles [ADRL Pro Nitrous, NHRA GSA Pro Modified] in what has been arguably the quickest and fastest season for the nitrous doorslammers. If the track conditions are present at this weekend’s Shakedown, the nitrous cars could reach uncharted territory.

“I think you’ll see 5.80s,” Reher predicted. “I can already see where just a good run can get you a 5.88 or 5.89 in NHRA trim and then you know with some of the things that are in progress I'm thinking you're gonna see another .03 or .04 basically.”

Any quick quarter-mile run can be considered only a best for this event since the event rules mandate no minimum weight and no cubic limit. The NHRA has a minimum weight and displacement limit.

At last year’s Shakedown event, not only did Jim Halsey run the first nitrous-injected, five second doorslammer run, he performed the feat multiple times walking away with the quickest outlaw nitrous pass of 5.959.

Gene Fulton, Halsey’s engine builder, believes that 5.80s will come this season in outlaw trim but within a year the doorslammer community could see the bottle rockets dip into the 5.70s.

“I think those runs showed what the nitrous cars were capable of,” Fulton said. “We’ve got engines capable of running 5.70s but you need all of the elements for that perfect run to pull it off. That’s the largest issue we face right now – is putting together all of those elements. The weight we can now get these cars down to along with the horsepower of the engines – 5.70s are very possible. It could very well happen next season.”

Look for that race to the 5.70s heat up as more high profile engine builders throw their hat into the ring.

Sonny Leonard, heralded for his mountain motor Pro Stock engines and success in the formative years of Pro Modified, has returned to the class with two of the class’s more competitive teams with Rickie Smith and Dennis Radford.

Radford, on just his second pass with one of Leonard’s new engines laid down a 5.92 elapsed time, during the Virginia NHRA Nationals in Richmond, Va., the ninth of ten races on the NHRA GSA Pro Modified schedule.

“I think when the rules opened up for a bigger bore and shorter stroke, I think the engines became more efficient,” Leonard added. “I think that’s what has opened up the quicker runs. I think if you look at the competition out there building the engines – the competition on the track -- it is going to get tougher. You’re going to need that perfect run more often.”

Mike Castellana currently holds the quickest nitrous lap in drag racing history with a 5.919, recorded at the Virginia NHRA Nationals while running an NHRA-legal combination.

Castellana’s teammate, Burton Auxier, also a nitrous racer, captured the 2009 NHRA GSA Pro Modified title while racing in the traditional Pro Modified format against the supercharged and turbo combinations.

After years of skeptics proclaiming the combination was dead, nitrous doorslammer racing has caught its second wind thanks to the three-fold combination of the ADRL’s Pro Nitrous division, along with an influx of big capital teams and an increase of competitive nitrous engine builders seeking supremacy of this style of racing for their clients.

There was that initial race to the five-second zone that jump started the combination, too.

“That run [by Halsey] meant a lot to the nitrous community because we are fighting the huge resources of the Al-Anabi group,” added Fulton. “It was one of those racing firsts. It was just as important to us now to have that first five second nitrous run as it was to the Top Sportsman racers who were gunning for that first 200 mile per hour run.”

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