Drag Illustrated Issue 191, November / December 2024 | Page 110

ing three of the key players in Pro Street that are younger than 30 . Ethan Steding , the 2021 Pro Jr . Dragster world champion , made his Pro Street debut at this year ’ s season-opening East Coast Nationals at GALOT Motorsports Park and went on to win the world championship at just 17 years old . The championship runner-up , Scott Kincaid , made his Pro Street debut last season at 24 years old and won five consecutive races , including this year ’ s season opener . Ronnie
Green Jr ., 27 , tuned his father , Ron Green , to the No . 1 qualifier position at the inaugural Pro 10.5 Challenge during the World Series of Pro Mod , then repeated the feat at the PDRA season opener . The Greens went on to win the Summit Racing Equipment PDRA ProStars all-star event over the summer .
Steding , Kincaid , and Green aren ’ t the only young guns in the class . Joel Wensley Jr ., 28 , enjoyed a career-best season by finishing fourth in the points standings with just one first-round exit . He qualified No . 2 at the World Finals and became one of just a handful of drivers in the class to dip into the 3.80s . Ty Kasper , a 2022 DI 30 Under 30 honoree , is a multi-time winner in the class who scored his first career No . 1 qualifier award this season . “ Quick ” Nick Schroeder , who made the 30 Under 30 list in 2021 , won the inaugural Pro 10.5 Challenge at WSOPM and reached the semis at the World
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SCOTT

KINCAID

COTT KINCAID burst onto the PDRA Pro Street scene in late May 2023 at the PDRA American Doorslammer Challenge at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk , Ohio . He was a bit of an unknown to anyone who doesn ’ t keep up with small-tire racing . Those who do follow the drag radial classes knew Kincaid was a proven driver in Ultra Street and X275 , and he was driving the car that his father , Tim Kincaid , drove to the Limited Drag Radial ( LDR ) championship in 2022 . But in short order , Kincaid made everyone aware of who he is and what he came to Pro Street to do : win on Outlaw 10.5 ’ s biggest stage .
Kincaid raced Jr . Dragsters from age 10 to 15 , at which point he moved up to a Mustang he ’ d built with his father . He started out running 6.00s , but he wanted to go faster . The father-son team added a little nitrous and got into the 4.80s , then they swapped in a turbocharged small-block combination to move into Ultra Street . That wasn ’ t fast enough , so they upgraded to a bigger turbo to run X275 . In 2021 , his accomplishments included wins at the spring Radial Fest and SCSN 8 Radials After Dark , as well as a third-place finish in the Radial Tire Racing Association X275 points .
“ We thought we did really good ,” says Kincaid , who also works with his father in the family business processing and transporting coal . “ Rob Goss and Ron Rhodes were running and we got third in the points behind them , so we were happy about that . But we tore a bunch of stuff up and got out of that and started running some local stuff . Then I got in this thing .”
“ This thing ” refers to the silver , screw-blown Clinch Mountain Transport ’ 69 Camaro that won the 2022 FuelTech Radial Outlaws Series LDR championship with Tim behind the wheel . The team planned to run some Pro Street races in 2023 , but they had to make some changes to be competitive
in the slick-tire class .
“ The way the car was set up then , it had a roots on it , and we couldn ’ t get it to weight with him in it , so I decided to start driving it in LDR just to get some seat time in it ,” Scott says . “ We ran it and never did a whole lot of good with it . We went fast , just never did win races or anything . Then we put slicks on it and came over in this stuff and wore them boys out for a little while .”
That ’ s a big statement for the shy , soft-spoken 25-year-old , but he ’ s not embellishing . Kincaid won in his debut at Norwalk , then won the next race on tour in Maryland . He sat out the next two races ,
then won the final two races of the season . With just four appearances in the eight-race season , he finished second in points , just 24 points — about a quarter of a round — behind world champion Bill Riddle . He then extended his win streak to five races when he won the 2024 PDRA season opener . The Tennessee native added two runner-up finishes and his first career No . 1 qualifier award to finish second in points again with one absence .
Kincaid ’ s success was somewhat unprecedented in the class , but he remains humble about his incredible winning record .
“ We probably do our best when we don ’ t know what we ’ re doing ,” Kincaid says . “ We came into it and we ’ d never run slicks on hardly anything that was fast . We didn ’ t know what we were doing . We were just making it go down the track . It just ended up working out for us . We had some lucky rounds and we had some rounds where we did our part too . It just worked out . Then we started getting a handle on it and started going faster . Then we changed combinations [ from roots-blown to screw-blown ] and started going a little faster .”
The Kincaids moved to a screw-blown combo midway through the 2023 season because they realized that while they found immediate success , they needed to find more performance to keep up with the class . The move paid off , as the class has
only gotten more competitive as existing teams refine their programs and new teams join the fold .
“ The class is tight ,” Kincaid says . “ These last few races , it ’ s really tightened up . At GALOT , there was probably 10 cars within a tenth . That ’ s tight . That ’ s anybody ’ s game .”
As much as Kincaid would like to continue building on his success by chasing a world championship in 2025 , he has bigger things in mind . He ’ s set to become a father with a baby due in April .
“ I ’ m still not sure what I ’ m gonna get to do next year ,” says Kincaid , who thanked his father for his tuning and support , as well as teammate Richard Reagan and his team . “ I may run a few races at the end of the year . Family first .” DI
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