Jason Scruggs

PDRA at Shreveport, La.

First-time series winners include Scruggs and Castellana

Words by Ian Tocher and Jeff Burk
Photos by Ian Tocher

The PDRA race May 1-2 at Nelson and Marla Hoyos’ Thunder Road Raceway was the first ever at the Louisiana dragstrip. Other “firsts” at this race include Jason Scruggs’ win in the Pro Extreme, Mike Castallana’s victory in the Pro Nitrous class and Gerry Capano’s career-first title in the Pro Boost class.

Also garnering their first ever PDRA wins in the sportsman classes were Ronnie Davis in Top Sportsman, Mike Greene in Top Dragster and Brooke Heckel and Scottie Taylor wins in the Pro Jr. Dragster and Top Jr. Dragster classes respectively.

PRO EXTREME

Jason Scruggs is a racer first and a part of the PDRA ownership second, so you can imagine his frustration of driving and tuning his family-owned Pro Extreme car -- one of the quickest and fastest eighth-mile only door cars in the world -- yet not being able to get to the winners circle in the series. He was able to get off that no-win ‘schneid’ with his first ever PDRA national event win defeating Badir Ahli with a 3.53/219.08 for about half a car length for the win over Ahli's 3.57 at 208.94-mph effort.

Despite an impressive 3.57/217.63 lap his '69 Camaro, Scruggs, from Saltillo, MS, only qualified fourth for the 16-car NAS Racing Pro Extreme field.