2025 WSOPM champ Steve King wins Wild Card Shootout

BY CRAIG COOK

When reigning World Series of Pro Mod winner Steve King just missed out on qualifying for the main 32-car Pro Mod field, his chances of returning to the WSOPM Winner’ s Circle seemed to be out of reach. But thanks to the Outlaw Light Beer Wild Card Shootout, a separate five-round race for the drivers who didn’ t qualify, he got another opportunity to race on Saturday, and he made it count.

Piloting Gene Pilot’ s screw-blown“ Savage 3.0” Corvette, King made the most of his second chance in the Wild Card Shootout, leaving first against teammate – and 2023 WSOPM Second-Chance Shootout winner – Melanie Salemi and her screw-blown“ Purple Reign”’ 68 Firebird in the $ 15,000 final round, charging to a 3.611 at 207.27. Salemi slowed to a 4.336 at 121.10.

“ We’ re happy with the win,” King says, giving a shoutout to the Salemi family and their G-Force Race Cars and Resolution Racing Services.“ Jon [ Salemi ] gave us a great car all weekend. We came up a little short on the A-feature to get into

the main race, and those guys are lucky we didn’ t get in there because we made some good runs today in the heat. During the night-time sessions we’ re not picking up like we need to, but during the day this car can run with any car here.”

King missed the main field by the slimmest of margins – just two-thousandths of a second. His best run of 3.604 in qualifying placed him 37th, just short of the 3.602 bump spot.

King defeated former NHRA Pro Stock champion Bo Butner in round one, running a 3.697 to Butner’ s 3.934. In the second round, King went even quicker, running a 3.632 to defeat Frank Falter IV, who ran a respectable 3.704. In the quarterfinals, he once again improved to a 3.614, which was more than enough to outrun Robert Costa’ s 4.423.

The semifinals brought plenty of drama. As he’ d done all day, King made another pass in the. 60s, this time a 3.627 against FuelTech’ s Luis de Leon. However, he also went-. 002 red, handing the win to de Leon. Luis had his own issues, blowing the motor on his twin-turbo Camaro during the pass. Knowing he wouldn’ t be able to fix the damage in time, de Leon bypassed the scales, reinstating King back into the finals.

“ We had a little semifinal round action there,” says King with a sly grin.“ I kind of feel a little bit down on that episode. I did red light, but he bypassed the scales. I mean, how often do you get a buyback round in Pro Mod racing?”

The stage was set for the all-Salemi-tuned final round, and King saved his best run of the day for last, earning him a spot in the WSOPM winner’ s circle for the second consecutive year.

“ We had to run our teammate in the finals, and those guys were over here in the semis thrashing – all their guys, all my guys, we had the motor tore apart in a million pieces,” King says.“ We wanted both team cars in the final, which we ended up with DI.”

DI DI

DI DI DI DI DI DI DI

98 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated. com Issue 200