Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com, with the assistance of a key group of Pro Modified historians and enthusiasts, has compiled a list of Top 20 all-time drivers based on their contribution to the class, historic achievements, statistics and fan appeal.

Starting on Friday, January 11, 2010, we will reveal the list, announcing two drivers per week, until the No. 1 driver is unveiled on Saturday, Mar. 13, during the ADRL Dragpalooza in Houston, Texas.

Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com narrowed the list from hundreds of drivers down to 20. However, today we will reveal five Honorable Mentions to the all-time list.

Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com, with the assistance of a key group of Pro Modified historians and enthusiasts, has compiled a list of Top 20 all-time drivers based on their contribution to the class, historic achievements, statistics and fan appeal.

Starting on Friday, January 11, 2010, we will reveal the list, announcing two drivers per week, until the No. 1 driver is unveiled on Saturday, Mar. 13, during the ADRL Dragpalooza in Houston, Texas.

Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com narrowed the list from hundreds of drivers down to 20. However, today we will reveal five Honorable Mentions to the all-time list.

Here are the five Honorable Mentions:

GORDY HMIEL
Passed away in 1991

Those who knew Gordy Hmiel can only wonder what could have been.

Hmiel, one of the pioneering drivers within the Pro Modified movement, perished in August 1991 in a plane crash outside of Warner Robins, Ga.

Hmiel’s potential as a driver was recognized while piloting Scott Shafiroff’s “Not Quite Over The Hill Gang” Trans-Am during the formative years of the IHRA Top Sportsman Quick Eight, USSC event and maiden year of Pro Modified.

Hmiel reached the final round of three IHRA Saturday evening Quick Eight events, winning once. He’s also credited with a runner-up finish at the 1989 exhibition race that christened the newly announced Pro Modified elimination. His finest achievement might have been when he became the first driver to pilot a nitrous doorslammer into the six second zone.

As talented of a driver as he proved to be, his engine building talents were destined to be his future.

Eventually this Yankee from Long Island, was coaxed into becoming a “good old boy”, and moved south to Mooresville, NC to open an engine shop catering to the growing Pro Modified class. Who did the coaxing? It was his cousin, famed NASCAR crew chief Steve Hmiel, who convinced his kin to move to the heart of doorslammer racing and establish a niche.

It’s a good thing Hmiel had an incredible personality because judging on looks, the slender 160-pound Hmiel, complete with a curly haired-mullet and big glasses, just didn’t fit the stereotypical hardcore image of the Pro Mod community.

His image didn't stop him from making many friends and laying the groundwork for what promised to be a successful business. In the end, Jason Sharp, now the marketing director for Tim McAmis Race Cars, said it was Hmiel’s attention to detail and relentless work ethic that won over many of the leading doorslammer racers of the era.

Sharp would know better than most considering it was Hmiel who gave him his first big break in drag racing at 19. Sharp believes to this day that Hmiel was on the fast track to success.

“His keen attention to detail set him apart,” remembered Sharp, who added Hmiel’s favorite keyword was ATD [attention to detail].

“The shop was always spotless. He always believed that there was horsepower to be made with just the clean assembly of engines. If he saw a speck of dust on something, whether it was a cylinder head or something, he would go and wash it. He was just passionate about what he did.”

MITCH STOTT –
Mill Spring, NC

Mitch Stott knew exactly what he was doing when he sought out the chance to become the first doorslammer pilot, albeit not in legal Pro Modified trim, to run a five-second pass.

“I knew the opportunity was there and I felt that I had as good of an opportunity to do it as anybody,” said Stott, the younger of two brothers in Pro Modified. “I knew there was going to be an incredible historical aspect that attached itself to running the first five. Knowing all that was at stake made me go after it even more.”

The IHRA and their insurance companies didn’t want the Pro Mods in the fives, and each time they got close, new rules would be implemented to impede their progress. Finally Stott decided to take matters into his own hands.

Stott knew if he made the elusive run, he'd be remembered as being someone special.

“You can win a race and the next week there’s another winner,” Stott explained. “You can win a championship and there will be another champion next year. It’s forever evolving. You run the first five and no one else will ever do that. It is a rare occasion, the setting of a milestone, that it is never forgotten.”

Stott viewed the first five second doorslammer run as a worldly challenge considering the Australian Top Doorslammers were on the cusp of the fives.

“I said it back then and I believe it to this day that the first run needed to be in America because we are the leaders and have always pushed the envelope,” Stott said. “Drag racing is an American sport, born and bred here, and something as significant as the first five belonged here.”

On February 14, 2003, Stott got what he wanted, recording a 5.985 elapsed time at 231.42. The car was 150 pounds lighter than the official supercharged Pro Modified minimum weight.

He scored ten national event victories in fifteen final rounds in combining IHRA and NHRA events.

Stott went on to win the 2003 IHRA Pro Modified world championship and while in 2004 there was another champion, there wasn’t another first five second doorslammer pilot.

JOSH HERNANDEZ
Houston, Tex.

Becoming a Pro Modified driver was the furthest thing from Josh Hernandez’ mind when he made his driving debut in a professional category.

Hernandez, from Houston, Tex., started racing professionally behind the wheel of an IHRA-sanctioned Top Alcohol Funny Car owned by his uncle Tommy Lipar.

One day he was asked if he’s like to replace Lipar’s Pro Mod driver Von Smith, and his experience in Pro Modified has been on the fast track ever since.

“I had no idea that offer was coming,” said Hernandez, who now races a Pro Extreme car on the ADRL tour. “They were going to park the Funny Car and it just all kind of worked out. We just all combined into one. It didn’t take me long to realize driving a Pro Mod car was going to be one of the most challenge experiences I would ever have. I was timid at first. It was an interesting moment the first time I let the clutch out.”

Hernandez entered Pro Modified with the intention of becoming the best driver he could be and while there were some rough edges in the early going, he more than ironed those out with the help of his experienced team lead by veteran tuner Howard Moon.

“You can’t go into something like driving a Pro Modified without believing that you can do it,” he added.

Hernandez “did it” and performed impressively by scoring two NHRA Pro Modified Challenge world championships in 2006 and 2007. In 2007, he won the first five races of the year and by the seventh race of the ten-event schedule was declared the champion.

In addition to those triumphs in NHRA, he also won five ADRL events that year, scoring four of them consecutively. He also established a world record that held for 18 months.

Hernandez is also credited with running the first “legal” five second run in Rockingham, NC, during the 2006 season.

While Hernandez may have sought out to just be successful initially, admittedly he couldn’t have envisioned how quickly would be his rise to the top.

“I never would have believed we would have achieved the success that we did as quickly as we did and on such a large scale,” Hernandez said. “This has been a huge blessing to me and my team who have all given 110 percent now.”

AL BILLES
Barrie, Ont., Can.

The challenge of mastering technology was the lure that brought Canadian Al Billes into drag racing. The idea that he could be an outlaw and drag race caused him to gravitate towards Pro Modified in late 1990.

“Pro Stock was just too expensive for my blood,” Billes admitted. “That run whatcha brung mentality just hooked me from start.”

Billes first became a household name amongst Pro Modified afficianados in 1991, when he joined the IHRA Pro Modified tour, and nearly beat Scotty Cannon out for the title during the six-time champion’s championship run. His 1990 Camaro was a homebuilt race car and admittedly his best.

“There were two years in a row that we challenged for that crown,” Billes recalled. “Scotty just always had a way of pulling it out in the end. It was awful tough to beat his experience back then.”

Billes carries plenty of experience these days as a tuner. He’s competed successfully as both a supercharged and nitrous racer. He was forced into early driving retirement after a series of accidents in 2005 left him with a concussion, an injury which bothers him to this day.

Ironically, Billes both laments and brags how he’s adjusted to life as a tuner and the success he’s attained. Today he’s the tuner for the R2B2 Motorsports team and also led fellow Canadian Kenny Lang to two world championships.

“It wasn’t my plan to become a tuner,” said Billes with a laugh. “Sometimes in life you have to just reinvent yourself. I’d love nothing more than to drive a again, but I know that can’t happen. The reason I went to college and earned a [engineering] degree is because I wanted to learn all aspects of the car.

“Since I quit driving … I’ve won championships. I’ve probably got more wins and records since I quit driving.”

Then Billes paused and offered with a laugh, “You know … that really sucks.”

STANLEY/WAYNE BARKER
Dunlap, Tenn.

Stanley Barker and older brother Wayne will forever hold a place in drag racing history.

The Barkers, from Dunlap, Tenn., fielded the only supercharged car to qualify at the 1990 IHRA Winternationals in Darlington, SC, Pro Modified’s first official race.

The fact they even raced was an even greater accomplishment.

Their “swoopy” 1986 Chevrolet Monte Carlo was a home-built machine that was assembled by Wayne in his street rod shop in 1986 and raced as a carbureted car before conversation to a blown combination in 1989.

What made this car unique is that Wayne built it the confines of a wheelchair. Twenty-seven years earlier, a non-racing automobile crash paralyzed him from the waist down.

Cars provided the passion for Wayne to move forward in life.

“I always said that on any given day you can always look around and there’s usually someone in worse shape,” he said.

He created a street rod shop and branded it Super Toys.

Thus, the finest and fastest ride to come out of the shop was branded Super Toy.

Stanley wasn’t much of a spotlight grabber during the brothers’ days in Pro Modified, and was content to drive the Monte Carlo and let his older brother live Pro Modified vicariously through him.

After that first year, in Pro Modified, the Barkers didn’t attend many of the IHRA national events, choosing instead to race closer to home.

Wayne passed away in September of 2008.

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