Jenkin's "Ices" Field at Memphis

Words by Jeff Burk
Photos by Ron Lewis
9/23/03

hen Shannon Jenkins drove his Mike Castellana-backed '69 nitrous oxide- injected Camaro into the winners circle at Memphis Motorsports Park it marked the seventh straight time in the three-year history of the NHRA Pro Mod exhibition series that Jenkins has been to a final round and won. That's a pretty dominating performance stat in anyone's book especially in the ultra-competitive AMS Staff Leasing Pro Mod Challenge where the best Pro Modified cars and drivers in the world compete.

Jenkins and his Tim McAmis-built Camaro seemed to have shaken off the early season traction problems they had and returned to the form that won Jenkins both the NHRA and IHRA World Championships in 2002.

To be sure, Jenkins' Camaro wasn't the quickest or fastest car in the field at Memphis. Those honors went to the supercharged cars of Tim McAmis, who set low elapsed time for the fourth time this season with a 6.192, and Von Smith, who ran a stellar 229.86 in Roy Hill's Ford.

Tim McAmis

Von Smith

In a post race interview Jenkins said "The weather made tuning for this race a challenge. We were confident heading into the event after winning at Epping last week. I think we have two cars on this team that are very capable of winning on any given day."

Since the IHRA rule changes that took supercharger overdrive away from the blown cars and gave the nitrous cars an additional 25 cubic inches, the supercharged cars seem to have found the power to be able to make one or two stellar laps each race while the nitrous contingent apparently have not only found some power but also the ability to repeat their performances on race day. In fact, nitrous oxide-injected cars have won the last three NHRA national events. Jenkins beat a blower car in every round on his way to victory.