When Cecil County Dragway announced in late 2020 that Outlaw 10.5 would no longer be a part of its popular Strange Engineering Outlaw Street Car Shootout Series for the 2021 season, some onlookers declared the class dead. A lengthy feature titled “The Rise and Fall of Outlaw 10.5” that appeared in Drag Illustrated in 2011 suggests that the class was merely on life support when it was cut from the Cecil County program after 22 years. But the PDRA’s Pro Street class is helping to put Outlaw 10.5-style racing back on the map.
[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #190, the State of Drag Issue, in September/ October of 2024.]
PDRA introduced Pro Street as a new class on a limited three-race basis in 2020 after hosting the Outlaw 10.5 National Championship Series for the occasional points race or two for a few seasons. It was originally designed as a mashup of Limited Drag Radial, Outlaw 10.5, and Pro 275, with racers allowed to run 275, 295, or 315 drag radials or 33×10.5 slick tires. The rulebook has since been refined to only allow the slicks. Pro Street became a PDRA world championship class in 2021 while running six of the eight PDRA national events. This season, the class will run all eight events with continued support from Menscer Motorsports and Afco Racing.
When Tim Essick won his first of two consecutive Pro Street world championships in 2021, 14 other drivers earned points in the class, with seven of those running more than one race and just two of those running all six events. The class had nearly doubled by 2023, when 27 drivers earned points. Across seven races, an average of 13 drivers raced in the class, while a season high of 16 showed up for the penultimate race of the year at GALOT Motorsports Park.
The growth of PDRA Pro Street, as well as regional programs at tracks like Milan Dragway, have attracted new participants and brought past competitors back into action. Class stalwarts like Essick, Jerry Morgano, Ron Green, Nick Agostino, and Chris Cadotto remain competitive. Young guns like Ethan Steding, Joel Wensley Jr., Scott Kincaid, Ty Kasper, and Nick Schroeder are proof that the class has a bright future.
While diehard race fans have long recognized Outlaw 10.5 and its new Pro Street iteration as a thrilling, unpredictable class, a wider audience was exposed to the front-wheel-hanging, wall-to-wall madness of the class earlier this year with the inaugural Pro 10.5 Challenge during the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod. Twenty-four invited drivers rolled into Bradenton Motorsports Park to compete for a record $25,000 winner-take-all payday. Young gun “Quick” Nick Schroeder defeated rookie Dan Norris in the big-money final round. Drivers like West Coast hitter Lance Knigge and Street Outlaws: No Prep Kings racer Kallee Mills raced with the front wheels in the air through the 660-foot finish line, leaving fans in the stands and watching online wanting more. A Facebook Reel of one of Knigge’s passes has 6.6 million views as of this writing.
“The ‘10.5’ name has always been known for riding wheelies, smoking tires, pitching ’em sideways, spinning ’em around, banging ’em off the walls, and you can relate to the cars that are parked in your driveway,” says Tom Kasper, a former driver who helped organize the Pro 10.5 Challenge and now serves as car owner for son Ty. “That’s what people want. Some fans aren’t as tuned in to what’s a good E.T. or speed, so they like the wheelies and the excitement. That’s what 10.5 is all about.”
This story was originally published on November 11, 2024. 
