Pro Mod Protégé Chris Terry comes into his own as a Pro Mod crew chief By Nate Van Wagnen
Tuner and fabricator Chris Terry has always been a drag radial guy, but over the last couple years, he’ s also become a winning crew chief in the increasingly competitive world of Pro Mod. This year, he earned his first win as a Pro Mod crew chief when he led NHRA Pro Stock and Factory Stock Showdown standout Aaron Stanfield to victory at the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod. A few months later, Terry called the shots as longtime friend Paul Gargus won in his Mid-West Drag Racing Series Pro Mod debut at the Shakedown at M’ Town. Terry started working with various racers and race car builders out of high school before branching out on his own years later. He began tuning for Shane Stack in 2010 and went on to win a pair of Limited Drag Radial championships with him,
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including the inaugural one in 2017. Around this timeframe, Terry redid Paul Gargus’ car, swapping it over from nitrous to turbos. With some mechanical tutelage from Steve Petty and financial backing from Scott Tidwell, Gargus and Terry found success in LDR, earning two championships there. Terry was also a part of Tidwell’ s 2023 FuelTech Radial Outlaws Pro 275 championship season with driver Jason Collins.
Terry also shadowed Petty when Tidwell got into the NHRA Pro Mod world. The knowledge he picked up quickly came into play when Tidwell teamed up with Richard Freeman and Elite Motorsports to field a ProCharged’ 69 Camaro with
Chris Terry
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six-time NHRA Pro Stock world champion Erica Enders driving in the 2024 / 2025 Drag Illustrated Winter Series presented by J & A Service.
“ Scott calls me about two weeks before the Winter Series starts and says,‘ I got you a Pro Mod gig. I want you to tune,’ and I had never tuned one on my own at all, just helping Steve, and it was Erica Enders,” Terry remembers.“ Honestly, I tried to get out of that because I said,‘ Man, that’ s a lot of pressure for my first deal.’ But Scott, Richard, all of them wanted me to do it, so we did it and we ran really good.”
Enders qualified No. 8 at the Snowbirds, No. 9 at the U. S. Street Nationals, and No. 14 at the WSOPM. She reached the second round at the first two races and got down to the quarterfinals at the WSOPM finale.
Throughout the Winter Series, Terry continued to learn what it takes to tune a big-tire Pro Mod versus a stock-wheelbase, drag radial car. His immediate takeaway: it’ s a totally different ballgame.
“ Everybody thinks the radial is harder because you’ ve got this little, small tire, but honestly, the radial stuff is way easier to tune,” Terry says.“ With the Pro Mod, if you’ ve got a window you’ re going to be in, you can be too fast or too slow. The radial stuff, if you’ re too slow, you just go slow. With the Pro Mod, you get it too slow and it sticks the tires and doesn’ t go down. Just keeping the wheel speed on the Pro Mod is definitely harder than the small-tire stuff.”
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY LUKE NIEUWHOF AND CAPRI WESLEY |