Australian Grantley Schloss had a breakout season in 2025, capturing the Radial Outlaws Racing Series championship in Pro 275 with his stunning ProCharger-equipped ’67 Nova. His title defense this season has started off strong as well, with Schloss winning the season opener at the U.S. Street Nationals for the second year in a row. He followed that up by securing the first No. 1 qualifier of his career at Lights Out 17 with a 3.687-second pass en route to a semifinal finish.
As the current Pro 275 points leaders – 21 points ahead of Lyle Barnett – nobody would blame Schloss if he didn’t change a thing on his setup. But when the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod presented by Red Line Oil rolled into Bradenton Motorsports Park Feb. 26-28, Schloss did exactly that, converting his car into Pro 10.5 trim. While the switch may have been a surprise to many, it wasn’t a last-second decision.
“It was probably about six months ago,” Schloss said concerning when he entertained the idea of running Pro 10.5. “We came down here for the U.S. Street Nationals and raced in Pro 275. I seen the show that Drag Illustrated put on, and being part of such a great event, we went, ‘Hey, let’s be part of it again and tag on the back of this and do World Series of Pro Mod.’”
While the car may look similar in Pro 10.5 trim to how it did on 275 radials, there’s a lot more that goes into the conversion than meets the eye, as Schloss quickly found out. He admits he initially thought it would be a fairly simple swap, and should’ve checked out the class rules a bit closer before diving in.
“I just thought it was going to be tire and ratio, like another third member and some shocks,” said Schloss. “But then there’s a new converter, and we had to get a smaller blower as well because we were running the 140-1. It ended up adding up a bit more than I thought it would.”
In his Pro 10.5 debut, Schloss qualified ninth with a 3.969 at 194.91 mph. Due to the unique format at the WSOPM, pairings were done by chip draw, where Schloss drew No. 6 qualifier Joel Wensley Jr. The drivers left almost simultaneously – Schloss had a .068 reaction time to Wensley’s .069 – but Schloss slowed just a bit to a 4.020, allowing Wensley to power ahead with a 3.960 for the win. Despite the loss, it was a successful learning experience for Schloss and his team.
“It was a little bit stressful, changing everything over and not knowing how the car would react and that,” Schloss said. “To come straight out of the box and run 3.90’s, I suppose that settled our nerves a bit, because it’s a long way to come to not even qualify. Moving forward, I think we’ll be in good shape.”
Racing on slicks isn’t a one-and-done thing for Schloss either. With radial events traditionally taking many of the summer months off, opportunities to compete again in 10.5 will be plentiful.
“We’re definitely going to have to do a bit more (10.5) racing now,” said Schloss. “We’d always planned on doing a bit of PDRA Pro Street as well while we’re over here. Obviously, there’s a fair bit of radial racing, but there’s also a few long breaks in between. We thought, what better way to fill up our time than go racing in something we’ve never done before.”
Make no mistake, however – Schloss is still very much set on defending his Pro 275 crown, which goes back to the decision to change up what was such a proven combination. But while Schloss says there can be questions about getting the car back exactly the way it was, he’s got an elite team that will be up to the task.“Yeah, there’s still concerns about that,” Schloss admitted. “We’ll just have to wait and see. We have a lot of great people supporting us as well. I’ve got Ryan from RK Racecraft, he’s absolutely brilliant. He’s the mastermind at getting the four-link set up to basically do the opposite to what it’s supposed to do on a radial. And then Brandon Stroud is my tuner. He knows exactly what’s going on and how to get us down the track. Between Ryan and Brandon, it’s absolutely fantastic.”
This story was originally published on March 27, 2026. 
