Commisso’s Brain Thrust Pro Mod

By:       Bruce Biegler

Canada’s Raymond Commisso continues to chart new territory within the ranks of NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Series racing.   The popular driver for Roger Burgess’ potent and multi-car R2B2 Racing stable recently debuted yet another new race car for competition….

During the recent U.S. Nationals and then the Carolina Nationals, Commisso, who is from Toronto, was entered with an all new ’68 Pontiac Firebird.   This car is not quite your typical “cookie cutter” Pro Mod machine – instead it employs some innovations that were conceived and built in-house at Burgess’s R2B2 Racing facility (Duluth GA).

Raymond Commisso

In fact the creative car has run pretty well during it’s few races so far.  Ray went all the way to the semi-final round at Indy and the Firebird then dipped into the “fives” for the first time at Charlotte this past weekend (5.978 secs).

The project melds the latest in Cynergy Composites body technology onto a one-off chassis configuration from within the team itself.

“This is a project we had been working on for 4-5 months now,” Raymond confirmed.  “It is an in-house version of race car.  All of our guys had input.  We first asked ourselves — what could the best design be?  And this is our vision and our implementation of that.”

While Raymond did confirm that he is not at liberty to talk about some of the car’s details or specifics, he did confirm that things are different. 

“It has a chassis design and a few things that have not been tried before,” he added.  “It is definitely outside the box thinking within the Pro Mod class.  I am fortunate to be surrounded by very professional people and the R2B2 team has all the resources and the right equipment. There are a lot of different things in the car and we will have to see if they all work or not.”

R2B2's "Skunkworks" Firebird Pro Mod

Raymond and his team which features fellow Canadian engine builder Al Billes at the tuning helm, are however quite optimistic about the new car.  The Firebird will see action next during the NHRA GSA season-concluding event at Las Vegas in late October before being further evaluated and then painted during the up-coming off season.

** And as we go to press ** News just in that Commisso’s R2B2 Racing Firebird did also gather the attention of NHRA Tech officials.   They were the designated winners of the prestigous “Best Engineered” car during the O’Reilly Auto Parts Carolina Nationals at ZMax.

“That award is a big boost to that part of our race program,” said Roger Burgess. “This is an achievement worth trumpeting for us. We’re going to start building new cars to replace some of the old ones we’ve got and maybe even sell a few as well. “It was a great testament to the work the guys put in to building that car.”

(Bruce Biegler Photos)