FERNLEY (Oct. 12) — Over the past several years the once vibrant Pro Stock Class has been diminished to almost nothing at some tracks or disappeared at others. During the Fernley 95A Speedway’s two-day shootout, John Feyder and Gordy Russell, along with Travis Petersen announced a new effort to revive the class.
Gordy Russell, John Feyder and Travis Petersen are behind the Nevada Pro Stock Association. They efforts is to restore the class and make it viable again. It will be based out of Fernley 95A Speedway.
At 95A Speedway’s show there were 18 Pro Stock racers. Here Malen Gonzalez (84), Jay Sears (56) and Rob Grace (42) are restarting their main after a caution. If the efforts of the Nevada Pro Stock Association bear fruit, there should be more field at least almost this size next season.
“Gordy and I were sitting in the office and talking about why the pro stocks were going down and what we can do to bring them back,” Feyder said. “We got to thinking, ‘you know we should have special races for these pros stocks.’ And rather than talking about let’s do it.”
Once they got going their first events were at the speedway in Battle Mountain.
“We went around and started looking for sponsors, got up enough money to put up a $3 thousand dollar prize to win and started holding them up at Battle Mountain,” Russell said. “Unfortunately it didn’t work as good up there as we thought it would. So we decided this next year we’re going to bring it down here.
The plan for next season is a five race series where the winner will gets $1,000.
“We’re going to base it right here at 95A and all five events will be here. And we’ll go after more sponsors as the more sponsorship we get the more races we can do,” Feyder said.
Helping them is Spanish Springs driver Travis Petersen.
“We going to be their West Nevada rep for them and do what we can to help build the Nevada Pro Stock Association,” Petersen said. “We’re diehards in the pro stock call and we’ve been in a few different classes but we big believers in this one. It’s a great, great class, a lot of fun and we’re going to help keep it alive and not let it die out.”
After racing a pro stock Petersen switched to an IMCA modified then a couple of years ago bought his pro stock back and sold the modified.
“We got our pro stock back and this is our second year with it. We’re going to do what we need to do with John and Gordy to help them get this going here and we’ve got about eight cars over in Reno that are going to really stick with us,” he said. “And we can get a few cars from their area and maybe some California guys that will start coming up.
“I think with a thousand to win it’s a whole different deal. You don’t race for that anywhere else and that’s a good deal.”
The way Feyder and Russell envision the series is their events will be part of the normal Saturday night fare at the track. They’ll pay the winner while the track takes care of paying second place and on down.
Helping with this project is a group of sponsors and they named a few people and businesses such as Truck Parts Reno, Jay Sears at Peterbilt Truck Padrts and Equipment, Capurro Trucking, Ted at Interwest, and Napa Auto Parts.
They agreed the rules are an item needing attention.
When asked about this Petersen said, “That’s the biggest issue with the pro stock class as it’s kind of a cross breed in whether it’s a late model, a pro stock or is it a street stock. We’re trying to rope in the tires a little bit right now and the suspension to keep it where its at and I don’t think we’re really that far off.”
One of their goals is to come up with a set of rules that will govern the class, a set everybody can live with.
“What we’re going to try and do, towards the end of January, is to get all the pro stock drivers and have a meeting in town with Matt. And everybody going to sit down and air what they think, what we think, and what everybody thinks so we kind of know where we stand,” Russell said. “We would like to see them freeze the rules for 2015 and if we feel there’s a big enough change to be made, and everybody agrees with it, then we’ll make the change.”
Feyder added that he feels freezing the modified rules is one reason why the IMCA class is so successful as, “guys can build to the rules.”
Then Russell said, “Each time you change a rule it’s beneficial to somebody and detrimental to somebody else. So you’re better off having them even across the board and leave it that way for a given amount of time before you sit down and decide to make new changes.”
For those interested Petersen explained the best way to stay abreast of their efforts and to find out about the upcoming meeting is to check the association’s Face Book Page or Website. Both are listed as Nevada Pro Stock Association.
If all goes well next year the pro stocks will start to be a viable division once again.
people keep putting more and more money in to these prostocks it is cheaper to go out and buy a used imca mod and race it any where. that is what I see a lot of the hobby stock guys that want to move up a class are just buying mods. guys like us that have a older prostock just cant keep up. we don’t want to keep putting money in it that’s why next year we will have a mod.i really enjoy the prostock class and would like to see it stay around. thanks for all the hard work you guys are doing to keep it alive. from Robert tatum prostock 33.
Thanks for the comment, only wished you had used your name. You bring up a good point and
all three of the guys are aware of the problem. That’s why they want to get a handle on
the rules and maybe modify them so people like you can continue to race in this class.
the message was sent from Robert Tatum. this is his son Conner Tatum, Prostock 33, if all goes well we will race both a Mod and a Prostock for select races. thank all you guys and promoters that are keeping this class alive,
Darn it. I hoped all stories would be about Shawn and missy.
Very funny! Ha,ha. But on a serious note that article has been spread all across the
western states, at least from what we can determine. Hope it will encourage people
to get their cars out of garages and back onto the track. Anything that will increase
a track’s car count is good.
Over here in Southern Oregon We made a rule change that really helped our car count.The mod chassis are legal with their engine set back…as long as they add 100lbs forward of the motor plate.solid bar 3 links stack leafs…(a
B mod chassis And..We had some of our Pro Stock guys get all excited and moved their motors back! the numbers were exactly the same on the scales. the motor setback was no advantage. Once the B mod class got added it hurt our pro stock class. So we made that rule to get some of those cars. And it worked.