Pro Stock Drama: McGaha Protests Elite Engine For Displacement Infraction

While I’ve personally been a fan of the Pro Stock eliminator class since I was just a kid, I can admit the naturally aspirated hotrods lack the spectacle that’s offered by the 11,000 horsepower nitro categories. However, if you are a fan of ultra-close, side-by-side heads up pairings that are often decided by less than one hundredth of a second, there’s no better source for that than Pro Stock.

Modern Pro Stock cars feature 500 cubic inch naturally aspirated engines with fuel injection, meaning the teams have to run their engines as efficiently as possible to extract every ounce of horsepower from the combination. Over the decades, this led to some creative modifications that would eventually lead to rule changes that resulted in the ultra-strict rule set the class employs today to keep the playing field level, which facilitates the competitiveness of the class.

The NHRA rulebook lays out the proper procedure for filing a formal complaint and Pro Stock competitor Chris McGaha decided to use that policy to protest two cars from the Elite Motorsports camp after they laid down the #1 and 3 qualifying times at last weekend’s CatSpot NHRA Northwest Nationals.

The two cars in question, the Chevrolet Camaros of Jeg Coughlin Jr and Erica Enders, were subsequently torn down by the Elite crew under the watchful eye of the NHRA’s tech department. After the teardown and thorough measurement by the NHRA staff found the Elite engines to be an inch and a half below the maximum cubic inch displacement of 500 CID, the money paid my McGaha was handed over to Elite team owner Richard Freeman, who distributed it to his crew guys as a bonus for them having to stay late and tear down and reassemble the engines.

You can hear comments from both Freeman and McGaha, as well as Elite driver Erica Enders in the video below, which sums up all of the drama that went down in Seattle.