If you’re longing for the glory days of Pro Stock when it represented Chevy, Chrysler, and Ford, with mountain motor majesty and gear banging action, you are in luck. A touring group of Pro Stock stalwarts with strict rules governing the cars’ specs, tied to the eras they represent, could soon blow into a dragstrip near you. Mike Ruth, who races a Bob Glidden tribute Ford Fairmont, started the Midwest Nostalgia Pro Stock Association (MWNPSA) to race like-minded drivers with similar tribute cars, “paying tribute to the legends,” as he says. Attending many of the nostalgia drag races throughout the Midwest and East Coast, this gang of 10 or so cars representing slammers from the late-1960s to 1980s run times ranging from 9 to 7 seconds in the quarter-mile. “We like to pair them up evenly and then put on a show,” Ruth says.
Running on a pro tree, heads up, these cars are really racing. Most of the cars are accurate recreations, with safety updates certified to current NHRA specs. Ruth cautions that the faster the cars go, the more modern they have to be, so the group is very serious about keeping the accuracy and then matching the cars, rather than owners reaching for ever-quicker times.
The majority of the cars have four-speed Lenco transmissions and all of them feature steel rear back halves and tops; no carbon fiber, no beadlock wheels, aero scoops, Pro Mod–style wheelie bars and wings, and no nitrous or turbos. “The fans are more savvy than you might think,” Ruth says. Plus the original builders, families, or estates first sign all of the cars off, which also lend a certain amount of legitimacy to the cars. In some cases, the offspring of racers—like legendary driver Ronnie Sox’s son, Dean—show up to drive one of the recreated rides. Says Ruth, “He’s a big fan of what we’re doing and sometimes comes out with the Billy the Kid car of Billy Step, which his dad drove for a time in the 1970s.”
With the value of name Pro Stock cars being so high, and as most are in museums, there’s little chance of ever seeing them run again. This is an excellent way to see, hear, and smell 1970s and 1980s Pro Stock cars again, with a bunch of owners enjoying keeping the flame alive.
“We’re all friends, and so we try to help each other out,” Ruth says.
Share the excitement of Pro Stock from back in the day, with some cars and owners that bleed Pro Stock. If your view of the current state of affairs in Pro Stock is making you yearn for the glory days of Grumpy Jenkins, Reher and Morrison, and Bob Glidden, then check out the MWNPSA schedule at MWNPSA.com and make plans for some heads-up, pounding Pro Stock.
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