The fourth round of the season for NHRA’s J&A Service Pro Mod Series produced a repeat winner….
Wily class veteran Mike Castellana, from the New York City area, raced to his second consecutive series win during the Lucas Oil NHRA Southern Nationals held at Atlanta Dragway. This week’s Pro Mod class racing was presented by Pro Line Racing and FuelTech.
Castellana drove the middle-eastern based Al Anabi Performance ’17 Camaro to another convincing win when he used a 5.776-second pass at 249.21 mph to defeat Steve Jackson on a holeshot. Castellana’s reaction time of .025 bettered Jackson’s (.052 RT) after he ran a 5.772 pass at 247.61 mph.

With his 2nd win of the season – Mike Castellana has assumed the overall NHRA J&A Service Pro Mod class points lead.
Jackson, who is a cross over and star racer from the Radial Tire class this season was behind the wheel of another mid-eastern backed and similar supercharged Chevy Camaro that is sponsored by Bahrain 1 Racing.
“I owe it to my crew,” Castellana said. “We had a little incident in qualifying, they got the car together. We had a mechanical failure the round before, they got the car back together. We made great runs, and I just thank my crew for putting this whole thing together.”
Castellana, who was also the No. 1 qualifier (set low ET at 5.717 secs) defeated the C7 Corvettes raced by Kevin Rivenbark and Brazil’s Sidnei Freigo in rounds one two and then stopped Colorado’s Steven Whiteley in the semi-final round.
Jackson defeated Shane Molinari, Harry Hruska and No. 2 qualifer Todd Tutterow in earlier rounds of competition.

Radial Tire class crossover racer Steve Jackson came very close to a first Pro Mod class win at NHRA Atlanta.
28 Pro Mod cars made qualifying runs at the Atlanta event – producing a swift 16-car bump spot of 5.881 secs.

The Pacific Northwest’s Shane Molinari set top speed of the meet for the second time this season (at 257.48 mph).
NHRA’s J&A Service Pro Mod Drag Racing returns to action next May 19-21 at the 29th annual Menards NHRA Heartland Nationals presented by Minties in at Heartland Park Topeka in Topeka, Kan.
Top 10 Points (after 4/12 season races):
1. Mike Castellana, 404; 2. Steven Whiteley, 269; 3. Troy Coughlin, 233; 4. Steve Matusek, 213; 5. Danny Rowe, 193; 6. Jonathan Gray, 183; 7. Shane Molinari, 176; 8. Sidnei Frigo, 168; 9. (tie) Michael Biehle, 166; Steve Jackson, 166.
Posted with files by NHRA Communications and Bruce Biegler
Photos by Mark Gewertz (NHRA) and Bruce Biegler