“Turbo Todd” Moyer, acknowledged as one of the pioneers of turbocharged engines in Pro Modified and small-tire competition for over two decades, set even more records at the recent PDRA Brian Olson Memorial World Finals at Virginia Motorsports Park. For Moyer, whose initial fame came in the now defunct Extreme 10.5 Eliminator category where he clocked a still-standing 211.66 mph eighth-mile record over eleven years ago, it was the second association World Standard he bombed in the month of October.
Long affiliated with Carl Stevens, Jr., and XRE racing engines, Moyer’s record-smashing month began at the North East Pro Modified Association’s final National Event of the season held during Maryland International Raceway’s annual Supercharger Showdown.
In 2023, Moyer had Stevens’ New Jersey-based chassis company, Xtreme Race Cars, update his 2014 Jerry Bickel Race Cars-built Camaro and then install one of Stevens’ Xtreme Racing Engines, a twin-turbocharged 524 cubic inch Hemi-headed powerplant of a completely new design. The engine is coupled to an M&M Turbo-Hydro 400 transmission in which all three gears are used. The duo debuted the machine at the NEOPMA race at Budds Creek, Maryland, with no test runs.
Although NEOPMA rules permit up to 96mm turbocharger inlets, Texan Moyer elected to utilize 88mm Precision Turbo units on Stevens’ new design to run at one hundred pounds less total weight than the maximum permitted size of 96mm. The car’s first full pass resulted in a satisfying 3.63-second eighth-mile with a terminal speed of 220 mph, Moyer’s best ever. When qualifying ended, however, Moyer led the qualified sixteen-car field with a 3.58 at an astonishing 227.08 mph, the fastest Pro Mod speed in over six seasons!
In eliminations, Moyer backed up the 3.58/227 performance to set both ends of the official NEOPMA record in the first round with a 3.59/225.90 and kept up the pace with a 3.61/226.58 before losing a close 3.64/211 to 3.71/217 semi-final match with eventual race winner Mike Decker, Jr.
From there, Moyer headed to the Professional Drag Racers Association World Finals in Dinwiddie, Virginia, a race sponsored, (somewhat ironically for Moyer), by ProCharger and ProLine Racing Engines. Since the NEOPMA and the PDRA utilize virtually identical rules, the Moyer Camaro remained unchanged for Pro Boost Eliminator. It was no small coincidence that, almost eight years earlier to the day, Stevens himself pulled into the VMP pits for the same race with his own radical new turbo Camaro and clocked the world’s first speed over 230 miles per hour to the eighth-mile in a passenger automobile.
The team took advantage of the PDRA’s popular “testing day” prior to the race to experiment with launch RPM and boost settings and hit a best of 3.65/217. When qualifying commenced, however, Moyer opened with a 3.61/225.60 which surpassed by five miles per hour the standing PDRA Pro Boost World Speed Record of 220.05 mph recorded by Kris Thorne four years earlier. A second qualifying run officially set a new PDRA speed record, the duo’s second association mark in twelve days, at 3.58/225.97.
In the first round of PDRA PB eliminations, Moyer set another new speed record at 226.73 mph on a 3.573-second pass which was a mere five thousandths of a second slower than Melanie Salemi’s two year-old 3.568 PDRA World Elapsed Time Record. In the second round against Joe Albrecht’s supercharged Camaro, Moyer could not get the turbo car’s RPM raised quickly enough for a timely launch and suffered a demoralizing holeshot loss when Albrecht’s 3.90/175 shut-off run defeated Moyer’s 3.64 at another world record speed of 227.88 mph! Of note is the fact the 3.64 had a sixty-feet ET of 1.02 seconds, (more than seven hundredths of a second slower than the car’s consistent 0.950 efforts throughout the event), indicating a probable second 3.57 if all had gone well.
The losing run moved Moyer to the fourth position in Drag Illustrated’s Top 8 listing of the world’s fastest eighth-mile drivers directly behind the three pilots who have topped 230 mph in eighth-mile doorslammer racing, Kevin Fiscus (231.44), Jose Gonzalez (231.24) and Carl Stevens, Jr. (230.10), all of whom made their marks over seven years ago. Moyer’s 3.57-second ET raised him to fifth quickest Turbo driver, a list still led by Gonzalez’s 3.52 clocked in 2015.
The team now plans to attend the 2023 World Street Nationals at Orlando Speed World, (November 8 through 12), followed two weeks later by the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals at Bradenton Motorsports Park, (November 30 through December 3). “I’m trying to talk Todd into using 94mm turbos for those races”, said Stevens, “since Orlando allows up to 98s and Bradenton permits up to 102s. Precision Turbo is a sponsor on the car and is all for it. However, if it was up to me, I’d put on 102s and try for over 240 mph. We’ll see what Todd decides”.
This story was originally published on October 27, 2023. 
