MSA British Rally Elite - Motor Sports Association

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MSA British Drag Racing Championships (Pro Modified) MSA British Drag Racing Championships (Pro Modified)
Showstoppers
Robin Jackson traces the history of Pro Modifieds and takes a
look at the 2008 MSA British Drag Racing Championship.
Allow us to present the most
extrovert racing machines
ever to contest an MSA British
Championship.
Visitors to January’s Autosport-
International will have left the Live Action
Arena with ringing ears after Andy
Robinson’s demonstration burnout closed
the show. Robinson’s 1953 Studebaker
Commander is a Pro Modified, the class
designated last year to compete for the
MSA British Drag Racing Championship,
and Robinson is the inaugural MSA
British Champion.
Pro Mods are the quickest and fastest
‘doorslammers’ in drag racing, the most
colourful and diverse of the sport’s senior
classes. Originating in the United States in
the 1980s, they hark back to drag racing’s
early, unregulated, match-racing days,
when you would simply ‘run what ya
brung’ and hope you had ‘brung’ enough.
Drag racing had emerged as a byproduct
of the hot-rod craze that
engulfed American youth in the boom
years following World War II. Once they
had customised, modified or even built
their vehicles from scratch, hot rodders
would prove them against one another by
motorsports now! spring 2008
racing them illegally on the street, or
‘drag’, often between traffic lights. It was
considered a test of the machine, not the
man – a budding racing driver could
always hone his handling skills at the
nearest speedway.
However, the human urge to compete
took hold. The fledgling National Hot Rod
Association (NHRA), formed in 1951 to
bring some coherence and respectability
to the hot-rod scene, soon found itself
concentrating on the competitive aspects
alone, seeking to bring these young
tearaways off the public roads and into
safer surroundings.
Frequently, local airfields would be
used, a concrete runway or taxiway roped
off for the occasion to offer a suitable
racing environment. By 1955, when NHRA
conducted its first national championship,
drag racing had become a distinct,
organised motor sport.
It seems fortuitous that those early
practitioners settled on the quarter-mile
as the standard race distance. Some
considered it too short. No-one ever
imagined that dragsters would one day
routinely top 300mph across the finish line.
Periodically during the next half-century,
ABOVE: Andy Robinson on his way to
winning last year’s Championship. He has
started the 2008 season in good form.
racers of an independent bent would tire
of following the rules and try some new
kick, occasionally to lasting effect. Thus, in
the early 1980s a vogue grew, among
racers with a sense of nostalgia, for
shoehorning giant, ‘mountain motor’ V8s
into classic sedans.
Mid-1950s Chevrolets were a favourite,
their aerodynamic shortcomings earning
them the nickname ‘shoebox racers’.
Founded in the Deep South – NASCAR’s
heartland where racecars traditionally
have doors – their numbers grew as their
popularity spread.
With that growth came assimilation into
drag racing’s mainstream, producing a
formal class structure and a new, official
name: Pro Modified. Yet that assimilation
has never been total.
While Pro Mods have become a staple of
several smaller US sanctioning bodies,
NHRA has never fully embraced them,
running them only as an independent
‘exhibition’ class at a selection of its races.
So they have never quite shaken off their
renegade image – which only serves to
enhance their popular appeal.
No such qualms inhibit Europe’s
motorsport authorities. Designated as the
MSA Championship class and accepted into
the FIA Championship fold, these former
outlaws are now welcomed at the top table.
The Pro Mod vogue crossed the Atlantic
in the later 1980s and now some 40 teams
exist in Europe. Twice a year, two dozen or
more of the best congregate at Santa Pod
Raceway for the Main Event and the FIA
BELOW: Philip Englefield in his 1938 Ford
Coupe warms things up.
European Finals, when MSA Rounds 2 and
4 are combined with the first and last FIA
Championship rounds.
Importantly, homegrown talent is rising.
One veteran, Gordon Appleton, has retired
but three new British drivers enter
competition this year. Graham Ellis, Roger
Moore and Wayne Nicholson are all
accomplished Sportsman racers who will
join Ian Bishop, Danny Cockerill, Philip
LEFT: You need more than just brakes to
stop these powerhouses.
Englefield, Kevin Slyfield, Robinson and
Ray White as Britain’s elite.
Last season’s bad weather was the only
hindrance as 26 entries scored MSA
Championship points. When conditions
allowed, the racing was superb. During
qualifying at May’s Main Event, Danny
Cockerill and Dutchman Robert Joosten
became the first Europeans to crack the
230mph barrier, though rain stopped play
before records could be established. (To
be ratified as a record, an elapsed time or
terminal speed must be supported to
within one per cent by another achieved
during the same event.)
Fine weather at September’s FIA
European Finals produced a thrilling race
packed with outstanding performances.
Sweden’s Michael Gullqvist (6.156
seconds) and Mikael Lindahl (6.110sec.)
both lowered the European elapsed-time
record and Robinson secured a formidable
lead in the MSA points, cemented two
weeks later at the UK National Finals.
The smaller fields seen at MSA Rounds
No-one ever imagined that dragsters would one
day routinely top 300mph across the finish line
motorsports now! spring 2008
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