Norton bought a screw-blown’ 68 Firebird from the Salemi family and debuted it at a Mid- West Drag Racing Series race over the summer and ran it enough to get his license. He then bought Jeff Rudolf’ s centrifugally supercharged“ Ghetto Sleigh”’ 69 Camaro in November and picked it up from Pro Line Racing in Ball Ground, Georgia, on his way to Bradenton for the first race of the 2025 / 2026 DI Winter Series, the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals presented by Motion Raceworks, in early December. When he arrived at Bradenton, he sat in the car for the first time and hoped to merely qualify.
The Snowbirds ended up being the largest ever gathering of Pro Mods, with 80 cars on the final qualifying sheet, including Norton in No. 27 with his 3.611-second best.“ I was like,‘ This is a dream come true to do it in the first race,’” Norton remembers.“ I did lose first round, but it was cool just to be there.”
Determined to more than just“ be there” at late January’ s U. S. Street Nationals presented by M & M Transmission, Norton and his team led by crew chiefs Rickie and Rick Jones went to work. Norton got a practice tree and worked on refining his reaction times, while the Joneses used their expertise from years of running RJ Race Cars to make adjustments to the chassis.
Their efforts were handsomely rewarded. Norton laid down a career-best 3.577 at 211.79 mph to qualify No. 16 in the sport’ s first-ever all-3.50-second, 32-car Pro Mod field. He took out No. 5 qualifier Justin Bond in a first-round pedalfest, edged out Lyle Barnett in a side-byside, 3.592-to-3.609 second-round match, and got past Kallee Mills in a third-round race that saw both drivers have to work the throttle. In the semifinals, Norton matched Derek Menholt’ s. 017 light with his. 018 and came up just short on the other end, losing with a 3.604 to Menholt’ s 3.588.
All of a sudden, Norton found himself ranked No. 10 in the DIWS points standings going into
the World Series of Pro Mod presented by Red Line Oil, which was worth points and a half.
Norton had his best qualifying position of the Winter Series at WSOPM, qualifying No. 12 with a 3.580 at 208.94. At the first-round chip draw on Friday night following the final qualifying session, DIWS officials named Norton the Rookie of the Year, recognizing all that he’ d accomplished in a short time and his true rookie status.
Norton then drew Barnett in the opening round, where Norton drove around Barnett’ s. 001 light and won with a 3.654 to Barnett’ s 4.071. At the same time, title contenders started dropping.
Points leader and Snowbirds winner Jason Harris, Snowbirds runner-up Sidnei Frigo, and U. S. Street Nationals runner-up Menholt all lost the round. In round two, U. S. Streets winner Stevie“ Fast” Jackson went red by. 001 and No. 8 ranked Kye Kelley lost on a holeshot to No. 5 ranked Randy Weatherford, while Norton ran a 3.665 to win on a holeshot over multi-time NEOPMA champion Mike Decker Jr.’ s 3.655. Low qualifier Eric Gustafson, who’ d moved into the points lead, went red in the third round, leaving just Weatherford and Norton to fight for the title after they won their matchups over Kenny Lang and Jason Lee, respectively.
The champion would be decided in the semifi-
May / June 2026 DragIllustrated. com | Drag Illustrated | 95