North Carolina’s Marcus Butler won both the battle and the war for PDRA championship racing in 2025.  Butler collected both the event win at the PDRA World Finals and with that clinched the overall season points title for the first time in his career.  Butler’s season championship run included 2 other PDRA event wins in his Musi-powered “Heartbreaker” Camaro.

Defending and 2X PDRA World Champion Jason Harris won the PDRA’s final event of 2025 at the VMP World Finals – for the Pro Boost category.  Although Harris will now relinquish the No. 1 car number — the victory was in fact his third consecutive World Finals title in his ProCharger-boosted Southern Diamond Company “Party Time” ’69 Camaro.  Harris beat newly crowned PDRA World Champion Ty Tutterow (photo below) in a final round which saw both cars run side-by-side 3.58 secs.  But Tutterow went red (by .041 seconds) to give Harris his first event win of 2025.

Ty Tutterow (also from North Carolina) was crowned the 2025 season championship for PDRA Pro Boost.  At VMP,  Tutterow prevailed in a monster 2nd round matchup when he met championship challenger and Canadian native Melanie Salemi in the second round.  Salemi left first, but then slowed allowing Tutterow to advance with a 3.706 at 206.20 mph.  That circumstance “sealed the season deal” for the second generation Tutterow-family driver in his supercharged Quick Fuel-presented ’69 Camaro.

NHRA’s penultimate season round for it’s demanding and full 1/4 brand of Pro Mod racing did include a first time circuit winner at NHRA’s Napa MidWest Nationals race (Madison IL).  At that event Montana’s Derek Menholt prevailed with his Pro-Charger Camaro – beating Mike Castellana in a finals which saw both racers have mechanical difficulties.  But although Mehholt’s win was unexpected by most – it did move him into series season ending Congruity Championship points contention as he sits now sits tied for 2nd and only 11 points behind Billy Banaka.  The 10th and final race for NHRA Pro Mod is at the Dodge Las Vegas Nationals – coming Oct 30-Nov. 2.

“Living legend” Pro Mod driver Rickie Smith prevailed at the IHRA’s first ever national event caliber race held at Ohio’s Dragway 42 (Sep 27th).  Smith defeated 9 other Pro Nitrous class cars entered and set both low ET (3.689 secs) and top MPH (206.14) while doing that.

Detroit-Michigan area racer Wes Distekano emerged as the IHRA’s Outlaw Nitro Series winner for the Dragway 42 race – in his very unique and fan favourite supercharged “Skinny Kid” Oldsmobile.  Distekano topped an impressive 22-car entry list for that Pro Mod class race portion.  He singled in the final when his opponent broke — using a best run of 3.654 secs (low ET) and 206.14 mph (top speed) to get his Ironman mission accomplished.

IHRA racing at Dragway 42 also included a third bracket — Outlaw Pro Mod configuration cars. It was Alabama’s Hank Stubbes who emerged – taking his supercharged Camaro to a win over that 8-car field. Stubbs too was a performance leader as his best math of 3.716 secs and 208.04 mph were the quickest and fastest for his breed.