It’s a warm spring day on the first weekend of April in Benson, North Carolina, and GALOT Motorsports Park is filled to capacity with racers looking to take home a win at the season-opening Summit Racing Equipment PDRA East Coast Nationals presented by FuelTech. Among those drivers is 2025 Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod champion Steve King – a fitting name for the man who just one month ago was crowned the baddest man in the class.
Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared as the cover story in DI #194, the WSOPM Issue, in May/June of 2025.
Fans walking by King’s pits are immediately met with a remarkable sight: five giant WSOPM trophies displayed proudly next to the screw-blown “Savage” ’15 C7 Corvette, a not-so-subtle reminder of King’s $150,000 victory at Bradenton Motorsports Park over “Stevie Fast” Jackson. The trophies are exact replicas of the one King took home, ordered for crew members by team owner Gene Pilot as a way to acknowledge how they all had a hand in winning “the biggest, richest Pro Mod race in the history of the known universe.”
“Gene has preached and preached to run this team with a family atmosphere,” says King. “He got those trophies made for everybody involved with WSOPM, and surprised everyone by having them here. He knows it takes a whole team in order to do it, so he makes sure everyone gets a piece of the pie.”
King – along with everyone else at Pilot Racing – enter GALOT with newfound confidence. No longer are they flying under the radar and able to play the underdog role. While the other Pro Mod drivers almost unanimously like the soft-spoken man from Strasburg, Virginia, and offered hearty congratulations on his WSOPM win, they’re also focused on taking him down. It’s a double-edged sword for King, because with that confidence comes higher expectations.
“When you go into the World Series and come out winning that race, it really puts a lot of pressure on you to come back to the PDRA series and say, ‘Hey, this wasn’t a one-hit deal,’” King says. “We’re coming out here to prove that it wasn’t a fluke. It puts pressure on you to make things happen and try to ride that momentum, knowing full-well these guys put a big bullseye on you and want to knock you off.”
King indeed proved that his WSOPM victory was no fluke, qualifying No. 5 at GALOT with a 3.637 and making it to the semifinals. There he fell to veteran Melanie Salemi and her “Purple Reign” ’68 Firebird – tuned by her husband, Jon Salemi of Resolution Racing Services, who just happens to also tune King’s car. There’s a bit of solace in knowing he lost to the same man that helped him win the biggest race of his career.
“Jon is just doing an absolutely great job tuning,” says King. “He has a very good package right now. I don’t even pay attention anymore. I have enough confidence in him that if he rolls up there when I’m sitting in the water box and grabs the computer and gets punching on it, I know he’s doing it to make the best run possible. He’s just doing a phenomenal job.”
With a solid start to the PDRA season under his belt, King can reminisce once again about the WSOPM, and the absolutely surreal experience of the final round: from pulling up to the water box against Jackson with music blasting and fans’ cell phone flashlights shining throughout the stands, receiving raucous cheers from all the other teams as he headed back up the return road, to money flying and champagne and beer flowing in the winner’s circle. And while the Real American Beer that King was drinking might have had Hulk Hogan’s likeness on the can, it’s the image of King double-fisting them like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin that will be forever etched in WSOPM lore.
“I’ve been in a few winner’s circles, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like that one,” King says. “And the ride back up the return road…that was the highlight of my racing career. Every team – Scotty Cannon, Bubba Greene, the Tutterows – was out there as we rolled through, giving us high-fives and congratulating us. I think their showing that type of respect shows where we stand as a team. It was really a humbling experience.”
King admits it took a day or two for the win to truly sink in. The all-night celebration, along with hundreds of calls and text messages he received immediately following the race, left little time to reflect. The following day, the team stayed busy loading everything up to head home. King says it wasn’t until he was driving up the road and looked over at the trophy in the passenger seat that he could finally think, “Wow, we really just did this.”
Pilot Racing’s performance at the WSOPM was affirmation that they could indeed perform at the highest level. King, who’s driven Pro Street and Pro Mod cars for 25 years, is no stranger to big wins – he took home $50,000 last year at the Pro Mod Invitational at Cecil County Dragway – but says they’d hit a bit of a rough stretch leading up to Bradenton.
Although they ran well throughout the Drag Illustrated Winter Series presented by J&A Service, qualifying for all three events – an impressive accomplishment in itself – success had not been found in eliminations. King was forced to abort his run during round one of the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals presented by Motion Raceworks in a losing effort to Ty Tutterow. At the U.S. Street Nationals presented by M&M Transmission, King ran a stout 3.604 in the first round; unfortunately, he was paired against Mark Micke, who ran a 3.566 – the quickest pass of the entire series.
“That was our Winter Series in a nutshell,” says King. “We tested very good at all those races. We just drew the wrong guy at the wrong time. We came back to WSOPM, and honestly, even though we had a good car, our confidence level was down from not going rounds. The World Series really gave us a big boost by restoring a little bit of that confidence.”
With the victory, King continued the time-honored WSOPM tradition of winning the event as an underdog. Two years after Spencer Hyde was victorious from the No. 32 spot, King ran through the 32-car field from the 30th position. But just attempting to qualify brought its share of uncertainty as well. As drivers continued to move up in the final session, he saw his position slip. By the time King made his run, he’d dropped to 30th. Luckily, there were no drivers left that could bump him out at that point, which meant King would be in the hunt on race day.
In the first round of eliminations, he drew Cameron Hensley in the ProCharger-boosted Coast Packing ’69 Camaro. Both drivers were nearly identical on E.T., but King’s slightly better reaction time – .088 to .099 – and 3.649-second pass at 204.85 mph was enough to get by Hensley’s 3.650.
King faced his good friend Jeff Rudolf and his “Ghetto Sleigh” ’69 Camaro in round two. While Rudolf slowed to a 4.826, King ran a 3.681 at 203.98 for the victory. The win was his slowest pass of eliminations, a testament to how consistent he was all day long.
“Jeff’s car has been running extremely well lately,” King says. “I keep saying he’s a win waiting to happen. He went out there and shook, and we get the win against someone that we figured was going to rip off a pretty big number. Those guys just missed the setup for that particular run, but we’ll take them any way we can get them.”
From there, King would soon face a Murderer’s Row of multi-time national champions. But before they could think about the quarterfinals, the team would need to overcome even more obstacles. The car’s transmission had been fighting them all weekend, eventually tracked down to a bad regulator. With the wear and tear on parts, they decided to swap motors after the second round to try and find any little bit of extra performance.
King is quick to thank a host of people for making it all happen – his wife, Karla; Jeff and Melanie Miller; Gene Pilot, Chad Wright, and Tyler “Bubba” King; and the entire crew from G-Force – Jon, Jim, Evan, and Lucas Salemi; and Eddie Whelan and Paolo Giust.
“It took an army,” King states. “All those guys helping us put in engines, pistons, transmissions – as soon as something’s broke, here they come. That means a lot not only to me, but to Gene.”
With a fresh bullet in the car, King took out six-time NHRA Pro Stock world champion Erica Enders in the quarterfinals. After a bit of a staging duel, both drivers were killer on the tree: King left with a .023 reaction time, but Enders was even better with a .007. However, King’s 3.654 at 203.34 was more than enough to drive around Enders’ 3.836.
“She’s one of the best drivers in the business, if not the best driver period,” says King. “She ran well the whole weekend. When you run someone of that stature, you have to get up on the wheel because you know she’s good every run. I wasn’t trying to stage last or first; I was just taking my time making sure I was getting up on the wheel.”
He would then meet his long-time rival, and reigning back-to-back PDRA Pro Boost world champion, Jason Harris in the semifinals. Harris suffered parts breakage, while King stayed in the .60s with a 3.638 at 203.80, setting up a final-round matchup with Jackson.
“Jason’s program is probably the hottest in Pro Modified over the last two years,” King says. “He drives great and his car is always one of the quickest every session. You come back after a win against Erica and pull the chips, I’m like, ‘Man, it just doesn’t get any easier.’ I mean it’s absolute chaos when you got to run these guys like that.”
In what will go down in the record books as the closest final round in WSOPM history, King faced off against two-time NHRA Pro Mod world champion “Stevie Fast” Jackson. Jackson was first off the line with a .029 reaction time to King’s .052, but King’s 3.629 at 204.82 was just enough to drive around Jackson’s 3.653 at 203.55 mph at the stripe – a miniscule .001 margin of victory.
“I don’t think there’s been a tougher path through eliminations,” King says. “We all know Stevie is going to go up there and he’s not scared. If he has to blow it up, he will. And he did. That’s how he races. I went through the finish line and I’m like, ‘Who won? Who won?’ I heard Stevie bang the blower right in the lights, and then I hear the guys on the radio start hollering and it’s like, ‘Holy shit, we just did it. We really did it.’”
As the winner’s circle celebration unfolded, there was one individual notably absent: the aforementioned team owner, Gene Pilot. As the owner of a New Jersey-based company that builds sewer treatment pump electrical motors, Pilot is what King calls a “seven days a week guy.” The special moment created when King finally got to see Pilot and show him the huge trophy made it worth the wait.
“The man was absolutely ecstatic,” says King. “He was actually out in front of his house doing burnouts. I think he tore the transmission out of his daggone vehicle, and he was laughing about it. He was just so damn happy. He’s put so much effort into this behind the scenes to not only own one of these cars, but to do what it takes to win at this level. And he wants everyone involved to know that they were a part of it. That’s why he went and bought all those World Series trophies.”
With a win as big as the WSOPM, public notoriety is bound to follow. Although not necessarily his cup of tea, King is jumping into the brave new world of social media. At the behest of ET Editz owner and Pilot Racing Social Content Creator Jess Miliante, King recently started a new podcast with co-hosts Jason Harris and Jeff Rudolf.
“We’re just trying to stretch our wings a little bit with the podcast,” King says. “For me, it’s all new, but I do enjoy a little smack talk in the evenings. And I’m slowly getting comfortable with it. I never thought I’d come out of my shell as much as I have. It’s all things that have to be done to stay relevant and to bring in new potential sponsors in the world of drag racing.”
Now, having claimed the biggest win of his career and following it up with the semifinal finish at GALOT, King says he and his team have no plans of slowing down in 2025. Before long it will be time to make the haul to Virginia Motorsports Park for the PDRA Mid-Atlantic Showdown presented by Red Line Shirt Club. They’ve secured one bucket list item this year already – now it’s time for another. “Gene wants to win a championship, and we’ve got the right guys in place to do it,” says King. “I’m like a kid living a dream right now. We’re carrying a lot of momentum with us and are very confident. But at the same time, the competition wants to take us out. They want to put our name on their list and say, ‘Hey, I took out the guy that won the World Series.’”
This story was originally published on August 12, 2025. 
