STATE OF DRAG
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
By Dragstock in 2006, the class was ready to
explode. The ADRL started its free-ticket promo-
tion for its debut event at Rockingham Dragway,
and fans flooded the track, many seeing the class
for the first time. The class caught on quick and it
rocketed into the limelight.
SCRUGGS: It was new and everybody likes
new and fresh. (The ADRL) was packing the
grandstands at the time, it was larger than life
and it was pretty cool. And it also gave everybody
who was used to running on kind of bad tracks,
they could come run on a good track. In 2006 and
2007, they weren’t as good as they were when the
Traction Twins (brothers Cody and Cale Crispe)
started doing the track, but they escalated into
better and better tracks. At the same time, the
same things that brought everybody also went
away with the downfall a little bit.
NOWLING: The racing at the events was just
crazy. The Pro Extreme guys, specifically, they
had never raced in front of anything like that. If
you had ever driven a Pro Mod, you had never
driven in front of a crowd that size.
SCRUGGS: When Pro Extreme first started, ev-
erybody had clutches and all that, and the tracks
were good, but they weren’t as good as they are
today. You could go out and run 3.70s and 3.80s
back then, but sometimes you weren’t quite as
consistent because the clutches were harder to
make consistent and the tracks weren’t quite as
good. So a guy could take a 3.90 car, a 3.95 car
and still win some races. A lot of cars had a chance,
so that helped the car count back in those days.
For the most part, it was one of those things that
escalated into everybody wanting to be part of
it because it was the hot ticket in town. It was
exciting times.
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THE PEAK
Exciting times would be an understatement.
At its peak, Pro Extreme was drawing more than
40 cars a race, all wanting to get their taste of the
action in front of big crowds and better tracks. In
fact, an unreal 50-plus Pro Extreme cars packed
Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas, one year for the
World Finals.
Bubba Stanton won the 2006 championship,
with Scruggs dominating the scene the next two
years with back-to-back titles. In that, though, was
a live-on-the-edge style that always pushed the
envelope. Scruggs was at the forefront, making
the first 200-mph pass, also becoming the first
to a number of magical milestones. Those shots-
heard-around-the-world with such massive fields
made the class larger than life, putting even more
mystique in the suddenly thriving class.
After Tutterow’s championship in 2009, the
milestones continued to pile up, as Frankie Tay-
lor blasted off to become the first in the 3.50s at
Rockingham in 2010. He won the world cham-
pionship that year – a true underdog story that
encapsulated the class at its finest – as new faces
continued to climb into the class.
MICK SNYDER (ADRL Rookie of the Year in
2010, world champion in 2012): At the time, we
Issue 135
TODD TUTTEROW (North Carolina doorslam-
mer racing hero, who raced Pro Extreme from the
outset and won a world championship in 2009):
It was basically no rules, bring what you got. It
was really exciting.
SCRUGGS: At the time, we were breaking a lot
of records and stuff that people had never seen
with a doorslammer at the time. You look back on
it, we were the first to the 3.80s, first to the 3.70s,
first to the 3.60s and the first over 200, and we
went 210 mph in testing. Everything was kind of
like a milestone at the time.
That part of it was exciting and with the
no-rules format, it enabled you to try different
things. It was exciting to be able to go out and
try those things.
JASON HAMSTRA (Ran IHRA Pro Mod be-
fore becoming ADRL Rookie of the Year in 2009,
world champion in
2011, now running
well in NMCA and
Mid-West Pro Mod
Series): It was the
best deal at the time.
You didn’t have to
spend a lot to get in
at the time. It start-
ed and there weren’t
a lot of lightweight
cars at the time. You
JASON HAMSTRA
could put a screw on
a Pro Mod car and
run the deal. It looked like something we could
get into and be somewhat competitive.
NOWLING: If you look at the history of drag
racing, I don’t know if you can find a category
over a four-year period that ever advanced the
way Pro Extreme did.
I remember when the bump got into the 3s,
and I thought, ‘This is just insane.’ A few short
years later we’re running 3.50s and approaching
the 3.40s at over 210 mph. In a 10-year period,
the class had basically picked up a half-second
and well over 40 mph. That’s just staggering, and
I don’t think you could find anywhere in drag
racing history where any category had picked
up that ET and speed in a short amount of time.
It was a testament to the fact that the rules were
wide open, and the fact these guys were so ahead
of their time. They were pushing the envelope
every single time.
D’APRILE: We had a really good field in those
years. Guys were pushing the envelope. To qualify
and win, you had to push yourself to the limit.
To do that, you better be ready to spend a lot
of money.