PDRA PROSTARS RECAP

our best friends and know that everybody has the same goal in mind and everybody puts in 100 % of their effort into everything that they do.”

Less than a month after Jordan Ensslin earned his first career Extreme Pro Stock win at the raindelayed Thunder Valley Throwdown, the thirdgeneration racer hoisted another trophy after knocking out 2023 and 2025 world champion Alan Drinkwater in the final round. Ensslin in his Allen-powered“ Seabiscuit”’ 09 Mustang led wire-to-wire, lighting up the scoreboards with a career-best 4.014 at 179.40 to Drinkwater’ s 4.024 at 179.78.

“ Winning ProStars is pretty special and important,” Ensslin said.“ It’ s a specialty race. The money is good, of course, but just being able to go rounds with our family and friends helping us, it means a lot because we put a lot of heart and

soul and dedication into this whole program and to see it come to fruition is pretty astounding.”

For the second year in a row, Chesterfield, Virginia’ s Ron Green walked away with the ProStars Pro Street victory. This year, he made it into the race-your-way-in event as an alternate in his newly screw-blown“ Gamechanger”’ 00 Firebird. He took advantage of the opportunity, leaving on final-round opponent Richard Reagan and crossing the finish line first with a 3.872 at 202.58. Reagan fired off a 3.852 at 199.67, which would’ ve set a new class E. T. record if ProStars was a record-eligible event.

Perennial Pro 632 championship contender Walter Lannigan extended his round-win streak to seven as he followed up his recent DragWars victory with a ProStars win in David Cook’ s Nelson-powered Copy & PrintWarehouse. com’ 10 GTO. Paired up with Kyle Salminen in the final round, Lannigan caught a break when Salminen threw away his quicker 4.158 at 176.70 with a. 009-second red light. Lannigan muscled his way to a 4.172 at 169.25 victory lap.

Super Street rookie Carson Perry broke through to pick up his first win in the category by defeating fellow young gun Matt Schalow in a final that guaranteed a first-time winner. Schalow left the starting line first, but Perry powered to a career-best 4.503 at 157.58 in his Greenbrier Excavating & Paving’ 00 Camaro. That was more than enough to defeat Schalow, who slowed to a 5.078 at 104.58.

In the PDRA’ s sportsman ranks, the winners were Bryan LaFlam in Elite Top Sportsman, Kyle Harris Elite Top Dragster, Mark Reese in Top Sportsman, and Dave Petrofske in Top Dragster.

The series’ rising stars in the Jr. Dragster classes also took part in ProStars, with victories going to Sofie Cooper in Pro Jr. Dragster and Knox Schween in Top Jr. Dragster. DI

44 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated. com Issue 197