This fall, 2021 PDRA Pro Jr. Dragster world champion Ethan Steding joined an exclusive club when he became just the second PDRA Jr. Dragster champion to also score a professional class world championship. Driving his roots-blown P2 Contracting “College Fund” ’24 Camaro, Steding won three Pro Street races on his way to the title in his rookie season. At just 17 years old, he’s also the youngest pro-class world champion in the PDRA’s 11-season history.
[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #191, the 30 Under 30 Issue, in November / December of 2024.]
Steding didn’t really experience drag racing until he was around six years old, when his father, Pro Boost championship runner-up Kurt Steding, decided to take his Ford Raptor to the local dragstrip. A week later, he went to pick up a race car. The elder Steding raced at a local track, where Ethan and his younger siblings got to try Jr. Dragster racing. Ethan was hooked, and a few years later, he won the IHRA Bracket Finals at his home track, sending him to the IHRA World Finals in Memphis. He made it down to eight cars, where he went red by .002.
“I was the only 11-year-old there,” remembers Steding, who raced at Thompson Raceway Park, Dragway 42, Summit Motorsports Park, and Quaker City Motorsports Park, all in Ohio. “It was weird, though, because everywhere you looked, all the other drivers all had full beards and everything already. That was one of my big accomplishments, making it there.”
The Stedings eventually started running a couple PDRA races a year, then they went all-in on the series, with Kurt in Pro Boost, Ethan in Pro Jr. Dragster, and sister Lily in Top Jr. Dragster. In 2021, Ethan won two races in three final-round appearances to claim the Pro Jr. Dragster championship.
As Ethan started to approach the age where he’d grow out of the Jr. Dragster ranks, he and his dad discussed the next step, with the eventual goal being a move up to Pro Boost. At first, the plan was to put Ethan in Kurt’s previous Pro Boost Corvette (now owned and driven by Bubba Greene) in Elite Top Sportsman, but they reevaluated and came up with a new plan with tuner Todd Tutterow.
“Whenever it started to come closer to the time, I went to my dad and I was like, ‘I don’t really want to bracket race going 200 MPH,’” says Ethan, a senior in high school. “He definitely agreed with me. We got with Todd, started talking with Todd about it, and Pro Street was making its way up. Todd was game with it. Everyone was game with it, so we found us a Pro Street car. Ever since then, that’s been the goal. I love the class. It’s a great group of racers and it’s really grown.”
Tutterow had Steding do six burnouts before he ever took the tree in the roots-blown ’24 Camaro. He then worked on 60-foot launches, then 330-foot pulls before attempting to run the full eighth mile.
“I just took baby steps, which got me to where I’m at now,” Steding says. “We ran good at the beginning of the year. Before the first GALOT race, we went and tested. The car ran great there. We ended up actually running a 3.91. After that, we were like, ‘Oh wow, we got us a car that can contend for a championship this year.’”
Steding qualified No. 7 with a 3.986 and picked up a first-round win in his debut at the season-opening East Coast Nationals. He qualified No. 1 at the next race in Virginia, then earned his first win at his home race, the American Doorslammer Challenge at Norwalk. The following race, the North vs. South Shootout at Maryland, the Stedings scored a Father’s Day weekend double-up win. Two races later, Ethan won again at the inaugural Thunder Valley Throwdown at Bristol. He clinched the Pro Street world championship when he bumped into the 16-car field in the final qualifying session at the World Finals.
“I knew the car was going to perform,” Steding says of his unlikely championship rookie season. “I’ve got the baddest man behind me, Todd Tutterow, and his son, Ty. I’ve got the baddest people behind me. So I knew the car was going to be there. It came down to me as a driver, if I was going to be capable of driving a 200 MPH race car at 17 years old, only coming out of a Jr. Dragster, not really having that kind of experience. I knew I needed to be on it.”
With guidance from his father and the Tutterow father-son duo, Steding grew as a driver as the season went on, learning when to lift, how to handle two different transmission configurations, and more. He plans to continue learning in Pro Street to prepare for a move to Pro Boost in the coming years.
“I’m not making the funds for these things yet, so it’s really not my choice right now,” says Steding, who is also learning the family business, P2 Contracting, with a current focus on running heavy equipment. “I would love to go into a Pro Mod, but I think for now Pro Street’s where I want to be. It’s an awesome class. Perfect speed for me. The racers in that class are awesome, super respectful, especially towards me, which means a lot.
“I think Pro Street is where I’ll be for a couple years,” continues Steding, who thanked parents Kurt and Wendi, the P2 Racing team, the Tutterows and their WYO Motorsports team, and partners like Larry Jeffers Race Cars, Mike Janis Superchargers, Noonan Race Engineering, Ty-Drive, and NGK Spark Plugs, “but I would definitely say it is a stepping stone towards Pro Boost, and that’s eventually where I’ll want to be racing. I’ll want to be racing after my dad.”
This story was originally published on February 10, 2025. 
