Few drivers have been as dominant in the Red Line Oil PDRA Drag Racing Series’ sportsman classes as Steve Furr. The Harrisburg, North Carolina-based driver won the first three races of the six-race 2020 season to secure his first PDRA world championship in Laris Motorsports Insurance Top Dragster presented by Greenbrier Excavating & Paving.
[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #188, the World Series of Pro Mod Issue, in May/June of 2024.]
He added another win in 2021, then two more in 2022 to finish second behind Larry Roberts in the championship hunt. Three more wins and another world championship followed in 2023, so no one was surprised when Furr won the $50,000 Intercontinental Top Dragster Championship held at the World Series of Pro Mod in early March.
Furr and 2022 PDRA Top Dragster world champion Tisha Wilson were the last two Top Dragster racers standing after outlasting a field full of PDRA Elite Top Dragster and Top Dragster competitors. Similarly, Intercontinental Top Sportsman Championship winner Tim Molnar and runner-up Ronnie Proctor both represented Team PDRA.
Furr got into drag racing right out of college in the early 1990s thanks to his late brother, John Furr, who was a three-time IHRA world champion. Steve collected three IHRA world titles of his own before his brother passed, then won another two after his passing. As IHRA changed its format, Furr started running in NHRA competition, where he still competes. He also started competing in PDRA Elite Top Dragster several years ago, attracted by the ability to run his ProCharged Right Trailers American-built dragster as fast as he wants – within his dial-in, of course.
“At the time I started running PDRA, I’d go to four or five races that were close. I got hooked on it,” says Furr, who thanked longtime supporters like Hoosier Tires, VP Racing Fuels, Right Trailers, and PAR Racing Engines. “It’s a great sanctioning body. They do a great job. A lot of fast cars, which I like. I like going fast. This ProCharger setup has been fun to play with. Over at NHRA, they’ve got us on a limiter. We can’t go but so fast. Being able to run them more open over here is a lot more fun.”
In between rounds at the PDRA Mid-Atlantic Showdown at Virginia Motorsports Park, Drag Illustrated sat down with Furr for a quick interview looking back on his recent success and looking ahead at what’s to come this season.
What did it take to win your second PDRA world championship last season?
The year before last, I by all means should’ve won it. I just screwed up at the last race. I put my dial-ins backwards in my delay box. Just totally screwed up first round and got myself beat and wound up losing the championship. Easily could’ve had three in the last four years. I have been going to more and more races, I’ll say that. Last year, I went to all of them because I was a little upset about the year before last. I skipped a couple then wound up going into the last race really, really close, then screwed myself over. Last year, I said I’m not doing that. I had my mind set that I was going to try to finish it off last year and I did. Four finals in eight races. That was a good deal.
To come off that success and win at WSOPM, how special was it to start the year like that?
That was awesome. Like I said down there when they interviewed me, I’ve never staged for $50,000 before, so it was something I’d never done. There wasn’t really a whole lot of pressure. I felt like there’d be all this pressure on you running for $50,000, but I didn’t really feel any of that. It was just like another race and it was really cool. I won a bunch of races over years and years of doing this, and championships and stuff, so it takes a lot to get me excited, but I was excited at the end of that just because of the caliber of people I was racing against and how hard it was.
If you look back at the numbers involved in that race, the guy in the semis laid down a .002 package on me and I got inside it, but just lucky. I happened to make a really good run right when he made a really good run. I got on the good end of that deal. The stars lined up and I was racing really good and my car was good all on the same day. That doesn’t happen every weekend, unfortunately. When it does, you like to cash in and get paid. I felt like everything lined up for me that weekend. It was an exciting win and a really cool deal. I would absolutely do it again.
What can you say about the PDRA sportsman racers and why they did so well down there?
Well, certainly at a go-fast bracket race, PDRA is going to be the people that show up at the race. That’s where it’s at. There’s some fast cars in NHRA, don’t get me wrong, but coming over here, if you can win in this bunch of people going fast, then you’ve got some talent. That’s why the PDRA stuff rose to the top at that race. If you go to a regular bracket race where everybody’s dialed 4.60s or 4.80s, that’s a different story. That’s a whole different race and a whole different bunch of machinery. But if you have a fast race where this is the kind of stuff you’re racing, I feel like the people at the PDRA are going to rise to the top of that race and that’s why that happened like that. I think it’ll happen again if they do it again next year. I think you’ll see similar things happen.
You were runner-up at the East Coast Nationals at GALOT Motorsports Park to start the year in PDRA Elite Top Dragster competition. How motivated are you to keep that momentum going this season?
I’m very motivated. I won that 50-grander, then the next week I went to the Gatornationals and wound up red-lighting in the semis. I absolutely should’ve won that race, so that would’ve been two in a row. At GALOT, I absolutely should’ve won that race. Totally driver error in the final. I had the race won and just gave that away.
I’m a little disappointed in myself because I had a really good streak going right there. If I’d just stayed level-headed and kept my mind right, I probably could’ve won three in a row. That’s how you start out. That puts fear in people, right? You won’t be nearly as good as they think you are. You just string together some stuff like that, then you get on a roll. I’m streaky like that. I had an opportunity to get on a really good streak. I kind of dampened myself. But I feel like it’s very important to stay on a streak like that. If you can get that going, that’s the key to being able to do well.
This story was originally published on July 26, 2024. 
