For a moment it seemed like 1987 all over again, a day when Pro Modified didn’t exist and doorslammer racers classified as sportsmen battled for the honor of being the first to run 200 miles per hour. It was a wide open heyday for drivers from IHRA Pro Stockers to NHRA Comp runners to Top Sportsman.

It was the day when a nitrous car had a chance to contend for a major performance milestone.

The increase of participation with supercharged cars almost nailed the lid on the coffin for nitrous racing.

In fact, the nitrous combination in Pro Modified was left for dead some years ago as interest left the sanctioned confines of professional drag racing.

Now, there is a magical new interest in the nitrous cars. The reason, a magic elixir which makes the nitrous cars competitive.

One driver achieves the feat in outlaw conditions, the other in a national event – the end result, new life for nitrous racing ...

For a moment it seemed like 1987 all over again, a day when Pro Modified didn’t exist and doorslammer racers classified as sportsmen battled for the honor of being the first to run 200 miles per hour. It was a wide open heyday for drivers from IHRA Pro Stockers to NHRA Comp runners to Top Sportsman.

It was the day when a nitrous car had a chance to contend for a major performance milestone.

The increase of participation with supercharged cars almost nailed the lid on the coffin for nitrous racing.

In fact, the nitrous combination in Pro Modified was left for dead some years ago as interest left the sanctioned confines of professional drag racing.

Now, there is a magical new interest in the nitrous cars. The reason, a magic elixir which makes the nitrous cars competitive.

No, the nitrous cars are not quicker than their blown counterpart – but at least now they are in the same ballpark thanks to advancements made by leading nitrous engine builders David Reher and Gene Fulton; their flagships now five-second capable.

The first registered five second run came from Jim Halsey during the Shakedown at E’town event two weeks ago in Englishtown, N.J.

Mike Castellana got his five second run a week later during the sanctioned confines of the NHRA Virginia Nationals in Richmond, Va.

Each run is historic in its own right.

5.80’s are in the bag. If the season was a month longer, Halsey would be in 5.80s. - Halsey engine builder Gene Fulton

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   JIM HALSEY’S FIVE

Jim Halsey will tell you he’s had a change of heart.

Halsey used to hate scoreboards because in his pursuit of excellence within Pro Modified, his quick nitrous laps were overshadowed more times than not by the supercharged contingent.

A weekend in Englishtown, N.J. left him feeling something better.

Yes, the blower cars are still running quicker than the nitrous cars and that’s likely not going to change any time soon, but that doesn’t bother Halsey one iota.

He’s running in the fives now.

Competing in Englishtown, Halsey ran not one or two five second runs, but five of them.

Running the first five second run will not define Halsey’s career as some have suggested, his persistence to make it happen will be the defining factor when Halsey’s career becomes the topic.

In the days leading up to the historic performance, Halsey struggled to get his car to perform past the sixty-foot mark while testing at his own track in Cecil County, Md. He stayed an extra day until he got it right.

Persistence has its rewards. The payoff was a 6.05, the quickest he’d ever been at his own track.

The team drove through the night to get to Englishtown and their first run on Saturday morning provided a body-rattling, tire-shaking aborted attempt.

Halsey never lost confidence despite the fact Mike Castellana, the quickest nitrous runner at 6.000, was at the event.

Castellana had been a lock for the most part for the first five second run, while Halsey had brought to the game just enough to win the rounds. On more than one occasion, Halsey defeated Castellana in competition although the former had record quicker runs throughout the weekend.

When Castellana blew the tires off in the first attempt, the door was still wide open for Halsey to make history.

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When the run came, it was far from perfect.

The car danced around a little bit and by Halsey's own admission, he didn't nail the shift points as well as he could have.

"I've been 6.0's a bunch of times, and although I knew I was on a good pass, it didn't feel like what I thought a 5.99 would feel like," Halsey admitted.

A broken radio left Halsey wondering how fast had he gone.

"We had a problem with the radios all weekend and I could tell that Eric (Davis) was excited about something, but I couldn't hear a word he was saying," said Halsey.

He calmed Eric down enough to decipher what he was trying to convey.

Halsey was a man on top of the world as he towed back to the pits to the cheers of the doorslammer aficionados at Englishtown.

"I was honestly too exhausted for it to really sink in, but after I got home the phone has rung for 2 days," said Halsey, who was greeted with a hero’s welcome at his track on Wednesday.

"If you're gonna do something spectacular you want to do it close to home," said Halsey. "I've never really been able to do it until now."

Halsey's single-season list of accomplishments includes event wins in IHRA, ADRL and Quick-8 Racers Association. His latest win, the Al-Anabi Racing - sponsored Shakedown at E-Town, produced a big payday and records in both elapsed time and speed. Still a mathematical long shot for the IHRA Pro Modified World Championship, Halsey will give it his best shot at Rockingham Dragway next week with the running of the IHRA World Finals.

Halsey is the defined flagship team for Gene Fulton, an engine builder when the nitrous doorslammer craze reached a high crescendo in the mid-to-late 1980s. Prior to that, he’d earned a comfortable living building those high-winding class engines dominating the IHRA’s Modified and Super Stock divisions.

Fulton watched the nitrous engine go from king of the hill in the Pro Modified division to what many viewed as a dinosaur in a high tech world.

“Nitrous was my business and regardless of how scared everyone else was, I had to continue on,” Fulton said. “I had to work on a way to fix the problems with nitrous engines and nitrous racing.”

Fulton really had no other choice with the entrance of Reher-Morrison into the arena. The five-time sportsman world champion turned full-time engine builder from Spartanburg, S.C., burned the midnight oil on the development of his 5-inch bore space engine program. He even further refined his in-house nitrous program.

“There was nothing special about that engine, it was the same engine I sell to all of my customers,” Fulton admitted. “I don’t play that game. I do all my nitrous systems and they had that one there. It’s the same systems my other guys run.”

Many believed as recently as two seasons ago that carbureted, nitrous engines had reached their performance limits. Those limits are a thing of the past and according to Fulton, he’s confident the bar will be raised in the seasons to come.

“Nitrous Pro Modified still has a piece to go and it can go quite a bit further,” Fulton added. “It’s just a matter of whether there are people mechanically inclined enough to make it happen and people financed enough.”

Just how low?

“5.80’s are in the bag,” Fulton said. “If the season was a month longer, Halsey would be in 5.80s.”

Doorslammer fans needn’t get excited about a 5.80 in Rockingham because Fulton points out some issues need to be fixed on Halsey’s entry and there is just not enough time to get them done.

Although, next year, all bets are off.

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Mike Castellana knew he had a five-second race car, unfortunately the run didn’t arrive in time to officially become the first. However, it was played out on the big stage of NHRA drag racing.

Castellana recorded the first sanctioned five-second nitrous run with a 5.963-second run pass during qualifying at the NHRA Virginia Nationals in Richmond.

"I've known we had the power to make this run for a while," Castellana said. "It was just a matter of time until we did it. The conditions were exactly what we needed to run in the fives. We have been running consistent 6.0s in the heat of the day, so it feels good to finally crack that mark and see a five up there.

"This was absolutely a team effort. We have an amazing car and crew and it took involvement from everyone to get it done. I'm thrilled for all of us."

A week earlier, Castellana had pulled out all of the stops to achieve the momentous run in front of his hometown crowd in Englishtown, N.J. He just couldn’t get the team’s 1968 Pontiac Firebird calmed down enough to make even one run to the finish line under power.

Castellana’s 2008 assault on the five-second barrier was made possible through what he described as major gains made in the engine department by David Reher.

To improve their nitrous gains, Castellana told CompetitionPlus.com that Reher wanted to first improve the horsepower output of the engine without the bottle. He’s adamant there's more to their combination that putting nitrous on a big engine and expecting it to yield big numbers.

Reher is well practiced at the art of extracting horsepower from naturally aspirated engines of the larger nature. From 1983 through 1985, the Reher-Morrison team dominated the IHRA’s mountain motor Pro Stock division.

“You have to keep the motor nitrous friendly,” Castellana explained. “You can’t just take nitrous and put it on the Mountain Motor Pro Stock engine and think it’s going to run better. You have to find that right combination.”

I feel like the best two [teams], Jim and Mike/Shannon pulled it off, but you never know who is going to be next. There are some good teams out there. I think when we got started in this, we raised the bar. When you raise the bar, people respond to it. That’s been the case in any class I’ve been involved in. - Castellana engine builder David Reher

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Finding the right combination was achieved by working from the bottom of the engine to the top and asking themselves more than an ordinate amount of questions.

“The object is getting the engine to handle more nitrous,” added Castellana. “We’ve run just as fast with less nitrous but what we’re doing is adding more nitrous to it and get the motors able to handle more.”

Cylinder head technology improvements have been significant as well.

Reher is excited that nitrous Pro Modified has crashed through the barriers holding it back in years past.

“I feel like the best two [teams], Jim and Mike/Shannon pulled it off, but you never know who is going to be next,” Reher said. “There are some good teams out there. I think when we got started in this, we raised the bar. When you raise the bar, people respond to it. That’s been the case in any class I’ve been involved in.”

The veteran engine builder wasn’t naïve, but he wasn’t overly cocky when he entered the nitrous Pro Modified engine building fray three years ago with Mike Castellana and Shannon Jenkins. He believed the first day of their association, a five second run was on the near horizon and the actions of Englishtown and Richmond validated his claims.

“I felt like it was,” Reher said of the groups ability to crack into the five second range. “It wasn’t a claim. Just looking at the numbers and what you could make; I felt like it was going to get faster. They are going to get faster. The 5.95 and 5.96 is not the end.”

Reher and rival nitrous Pro Modified engine builder Gene Fulton agree that 5.80s are in their crosshairs, maybe not in 2008 but next year for sure.

“It’s not going to be deep in the 5.80s. These advances come slow. I am saying high 5.80s; you might see freak conditions and see something different. We aren’t going to just bomb our way through there. The power curve is going to get flatter. A lot of times the chassis and other things have to be evaluated. E.T. is gained in other places other than just the engine. There’s gearing, transmissions and clutches and the overall way the power is applied. All of that has to be learned. Each time you take a step forward, it gets tougher. It’s going to go from walking on a sidewalk to walking on a razor blade in terms of tolerance.”

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The recent surge in nitrous performance spawns another question for the Pro Modified diehards. Is there a realistic chance for parity between the major power-adder factions in the class? Reher feels it’s almost there.

“The IHRA blown and nitrous cars are pretty close to being on even footing,” Reher said. “They are closer than the ones in NHRA; obviously the blown cars were pretty quick in Richmond. With the rear-end gear and extra blower overdrive of the NHRA cars, it’s going to take a bit of work to get on even footing with them.

“They should just leave the IHRA cars alone for a while and see how it is. You had a three-year period where the nitrous cars were so far behind that only a handful of nitrous cars were making the trip. You’d get about three cars at an event or so.”

The rash of five second nitrous runs have permeated the mindset of the teams and race fans, but if the truth be known, according to Reher, Castellana’s momentous run in Richmond wasn’t the most impressive.

“Being perfectly honest I think some of the faster runs in nitrous came earlier in the year,” Reher admitted. “The 5.96 run Mike posted was actually not as good of a run as the two 6.00s he ran in Michigan. When he went a 6.03 elapsed time at 3,800 feet in Tulsa, Ok., that was the most impressive run that I know of; that was hot and miserable conditions.”

Reher hopes the attention given to the five-second battle will encourage more nitrous cars to come out and run the national events. That in turn will ratchet up the level of competition.

“They’ll just beat on each other,” Reher added. “The better they run, the more people will push each other. It would be ideal if they’d split the classes and have 8 of each race one another. The fans love the nitrous car. They are still the original Pro Modified, the Pro Stockers with nitrous.”

In the end, Reher admits everyone associated with nitrous Pro Modified won when Halsey nailed down the historic run in Englishtown, regardless of affiliation.

“I think it’s a victory for all the nitrous cars,” Reher said. “It’s a small world and the nitrous guys were waiting for it to happen. I think it’s encouraging. I’m not going to tell you I wouldn’t have rather done it first. I think it’s great for all of the nitrous cars. Now the guy who used to say you can’t run that fast has to acknowledge it and maybe he will come out and run a nitrous car.”