Pro Modified’s ancestry on the west coast can be traced back to as early as the 1970s and ironically came out of the early Pro Gas movement. And, while the IHRA has boasted the first of the Top Sportsman style racing, the idea actually begin earlier than that over in the AHRA with the Top Comp division.

But, when it came to heads up fast doorslammers, the Pro Gassers at Redding Dragway fit the bill of an early form of Pro Modified.

Dave Dorman, at Redding Dragway in 1971, staged a Pro Gas event that hosted the likes of Northern California hitters Dave Riolo, Bob Bunker, Tom Thornhill and Wayne Torkelson, four drivers who would be the west coast pioneers of fast doorslammer racing. Prior to that, he booked the group in as an eight-car, no breakout show and called them Pro Gas because in his words, “I could only afford gassers.”

The cars were eventually contested with a 9.50 index and later slowed to a 9.90 when the NHRA got involved. When the NHRA diluted their program with a name change and a slower index, these Pro Gas racers looked to start another trend.

As fate would have it, Riolo had a big engine with nitrous and Bunker had a supercharger.

“The Riolo and Bunker rivalry came around then,” said Dave Wallace, Drag Racing Magazine founding editor.

As the eastern doorslammer movement stepped up, and especially with the proclamation that Charles Carpenter had the world’s fastest 1955 Chevy, that’s when Riolo, along with the help of media hounds Wallace and Steve Collison at Super Stock & Drag Illustrated, brought to the forefront a battle to be the first to put the 1955 Chevy into the seven-second zone.

The honor would eventually go to Carpenter by three hours when he laid down a 7.99 elapsed time at Richmond Dragway in his all-steel car that was clearly on its ninth life. Riolo would wrestle away the honor of the world’s fastest [should have been quickest] title with a 7.97 in Fremont, Ca.

Carpenter would eventually return with a sleeker, all-fiberglass version and get his title back. He hasn’t relinquished the mark to this day.

NOS founder Mike Thermos had spent much of his time over the course of the 1980s tried to warn Riolo and the rest of the west coast cars about the resourcefulness of the eastern doorslammer racers.

“I used to go to the Pro Gas events out here in California and see how these guys would get amped up over blown, gas doorslammers,” said Thermos, who eventually sold NOS to Holley in the early part of the decade. “I would watch some of these guys go 7.60s and the announcers would just go crazy. I was a Californian but I knew even then that those guys had no idea what those southern racers were like. Those guys were going 6.80s with unblown engines. I wanted to tell those guys how the east coast guys would come out here and clean their clocks. I knew that because I was so heavily involved with them.”

Thermos confirmed that he had to counsel one of the west coast’s more prominent racers on more than one occasion.

“I always had to remind them that those guys on the east coast might talk a little funny but when it comes to their cars, they will beat you with a stick,” he added.

Case in point, Thermos remembers that Robbie Vandergriff did make a trip to the west coast and in a race against Dave Riolo, grabbed three car lengths by mid-track.

“Robbie was such a good guy that instead of beating him up the next round, he let Riolo win,” Thermos said.