Richie Stevens is back in familiar territory.

The Pro Stock driver is racing this weekend in the Pro Modified division in an electronic fuel injected, nitrous Pro Modified for Dave and Jeff Pierce.

"It’s been about 11 years since I’ve driven a Pro Mod car," said Stevens, who first raced the doorslammer class in 2004 while driving for Roy Hill. "It’s kind of cool to come back and run again.  The times have picked up since I last competed here.  I think a 6.19 is what I ran back then."

Stevens reset his personal best in pre-Indy testing at St. Louis with a 6.01 elapsed time.  

"We did a pretty soft set up just to get used to the car which is still quicker than I’ve ever been so it was pretty cool," said Stevens. "We go 238 at 6.01 so hopefully we can improve and get down in the 5’s.  That’s what we’ve gotta do to qualify and we’re more than capable of doing it."  

The last Pro Modified car Stevens drove was a supercharged entry. This weekend he's driving in uncharted territory outside of the test session where he made four passes.

"I’ve never raced a nitrous car before, just the blower cars," said Stevens. "This is a whole different kind of animal, but it’s fuel injected which makes it a lot easier to drive and to do burnouts for staging and things like that.  It’s really responsive and has a lot of power.  I told Jeff that it pulls more in high gear than anywhere else on the track, that I can kind of feel for myself."  

Stevens exhibited one of his talents since turning professional in 1996 during the test session - versatility.

"I was jumping from this car to a Pro Stock car, I was driving three cars in one day of testing," said Stevens. "It's kind of hard to get a rhythm, but I’ve made three runs with this car so I am comfortable."

Stevens was originally scheduled to drive a Pro Stock car for Allen Johnson, but at the last minute the deal fell through.