is that class that everybody feels competitive. You’ ve got cars that have been sitting in shops for years coming out. You’ ve got people that are building cars to come run it. You’ ve got people that are slowing their stuff down to go the number because they can’ t go 4.30, but they can go 5.30.”
“ Lil Gangstas is like the perfect split between a small-tire car and a True Street car,” Gunner adds.“ A small-tire car can slow it down enough to get there, a True Street car can usually speed it up to get there, and it makes for some really competitive racing. And you see the weirdest mix of cars too. It’ s not just Fox body Mustang after Fox body Mustang.”
Seventy-seven racers showed up for the first Lil Gangstas race, which paid out $ 22,000 to the winner. Around the same time, Gunner launched his Jimmy Dale Racing YouTube channel, where he posts vlogs from his weekly racing endeavors. The following he developed on YouTube helped fuel the growth of Lil Gangstas.
“ Most people who are coming up with a class don’ t happen to have a successful YouTube channel,” Gunner says.“ It’ s the perfect storm for us that we have 100,000 people that are watching a video, so it’ s easy to persuade racers and to make this cool. For something to be successful, you’ ve got to figure out how to make it cool. That’ s really what we’ ve done. We’ ve just figured out how to make running 5.30 cool.”
“ LIL GANGSTAS IS THAT CLASS THAT EVERYBODY FEELS
COMPETITIVE.”
Lil Gangstas continued to pick up steam in 2024. That growth led to conversations with Drag IllustrateD founder Wes Buck about adding the class to the 2025 World Series of Pro Mod lineup. The addition was announced in early February, just a few weeks before the race, and 57 racers quickly signed up to participate.
Competing alongside the headlining Pro Mod class and supporting categories like Pro 10.5 and Mountain Motor Pro Stock, Lil Gangstas reached a new audience both in-person at Bradenton Motorsports Park and online through the FloRacing livestream. After several rounds of competition, Gunner himself defeated a red-lighting William Colson in the $ 30,000 final round behind the wheel of the nitrous-fed“ 50 Shades of Brown” Mustang.
“ World Series of Pro Mod was the biggest stepping stone on both the promoting side and the racing side because I won,” Gunner says.“ We’ ve raced in the class since we start-
Poland wears many hats, from co-promoter to grudge race negotiator to main crew member and hype man on race day.
ed it and had gone to the finals three times, but had never won one. I never won one, and then I win the biggest one of all time.”
Gunner’ s win and the class’ s overall performance at WSOPM opened a lot of eyes and got Gunner and Poland’ s phones ringing.
“ We didn’ t even make it out of Florida, headed back to Texas, and Shawn Ellington –‘ Murder Nova’ – actually called, and Speed Promotions was like,‘ Hey, we want to do something with Lil Gangstas,’” Poland says.“ People I haven’ t talked to in years were sending me screenshots of the live feed. I work for Nitrous Express and we were getting calls from customers ordering parts and talking about WSOPM because they were watching it across the pond. We went from thousands of eyes to millions.”
Lil Gangstas was added to the lineup at several Speed Promotions Racing events, previously known as No Prep Kings. Big Jake Promotions also added the class to its Southern No Time Nationals 8 at Xtreme Raceway Park in early September, with $ 25,000 going to the winner.
126 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated. com Issue 196