Johnny Pluchino conquers Mountain Motor Pro Stock Invitational

By Nate Van Wagnen

As one of the most consistent competitors in the last two Mountain Motor Pro Stock Invitationals, Johnny Pluchino was a favorite to become the next winner of the $ 25,000 shootout. A semifinalist in 2023 and runner-up in 2024, Pluchino qualified No. 1 and raced to a final-round win at the 2025 edition when he defeated fellow young gun Derrick Reese.

Pluchino rolled into Bradenton with his familiar orange, Kaase-powered’ 13 Mustang, but with the addition of a new primary sponsor on the doors. Ross Environmental Services, a multi-faceted, family-based business located in north central Ohio, stepped up to provide added support after jumping on board with Pluchino as an associate sponsor for Pluchino’ s trip out West to the Ford Performance NHRA Nationals in Las Vegas. There, Pluchino qualified No. 1, won the event, and secured the first-ever Johnson’ s Horsepowered Garage NHRA Mountain Motor Pro Stock world championship.

“ Starting off the season at the World Series, we just gotta go out there and pick up where we left off,” Pluchino said before the race weekend.“ We left off extremely strong. We know we’ re the ones to beat, whether everyone feels that way or not, but you gotta go out there and you gotta get the job done. We’ re motivated. We’ ve got two races like this under our belt in the last two years. We went to the semis and the finals, so the next step is to win the thing.”

Pluchino set that plan into motion quickly. He laid down a 4.096-second pass at 177.11 mph in Thursday’ s first qualifying session to establish the No. 1 spot, then padded that lead with a 4.061 at 177.60 in Q2 to end the day as the provisional No. 1 qualifier. Though Pluchino didn’ t improve in Friday’ s final two sessions, he did continue to go down the track with class-leading performances. He locked in the No. 1 spot, earning a $ 1,500 low qualifier bonus.

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