Pro Mod Madness! Our Fuel Curve Top 10 List #4 Jose Gonzalez
Editor’s Note. This is a ten-part series we will run once per week introducing the Top 10 Pro Mod race cars in our opinion. Series author Steven Bunker knows a thing or two about drag racing, especially Pro Mods. His grandfather Bob Bunker was one of the premier racers in supercharged, steel-bodied, quarter mile door cars which were the precursor to the class. Check back each week as Steven counts ‘em down!
#4 – Jose Gonzalez aka “El General”
Turbocharged cars were around prior to Jose Gonzalez and the El General / Q80 team entering the Pro Mod ranks but when Gonzalez came along and teamed up with the folks at Pro Line Racing, things escalated quickly. Today, Gonzalez and his C7 Corvette can lay claim to being the quickest door car on the planet with an astonishing 5.403 quarter mile ET at ONLY 259.71 MPH. We say ONLY because he was well out of the throttle with the ‘chutes deployed before stopping the clocks. Insiders agree that his MPH would have been 270-plus if he legged it out through the traps. Pure insanity!
The five second barrier was first knocked down on February 14, 2003 by Mitch Stott with a 5.985. In today’s terms it “broke the internet” way before the internet could be broken. Now, 14-years later, these cars have chipped off six-tenths of a second and have added another 50 MPH to their top speed. The progression of the Pro Mod class has ramped up dramatically the past 14 years, especially the turbocharged cars such as Gonzalez’s El General / Q80 team which has been a huge factor in that progression. As well as being the quickest quarter-mile Pro Mod car in the world, El General also holds the PDRA Pro Boost eighth-mile ET and MPH records at 3.648 and 215.20.
The EGR / Q80 team have reworked a prior car in their stable, a 1969 Camaro, by ditching an EFI Screw Supercharged power plant for the tried and true PLR Twin Turbo Hemi to compete in the PDRA Pro Extreme class. Check out “The Beast” in action HERE as it match races a Jet Car, true Pro Mod Madness!
Tune in next week for #3 on our Top 10 Pro Mods
Complete list:
#10 – Danny Rowe
#9 – Todd Tutterow
#8 – Lizzy Musi
#7 – Troy Coughlin
#6 – John Zappia
#5 – Frankie Taylor
