Drag Racing News Daily

ADRL Announces Major Changes for 10.5 Class
O'FALLON, Mo. - After several weeks of trying to create a set of rules that would result in a level playing field for its newest professional class, Pro 10.5, the Flowmaster American Drag Racing League competition committee announced a major twist to its version of the ultra-popular 10.5 cars. Beginning with the first event of 2007, there will be no performance or minimum weight restrictions on the 10.5 cars that run in the ADRL.

The 10.5 cars will continue to be required to meet all of the ADRL's safety and appearance requirements. In addition, all 10.5 cars running in the ADRL must have working headlights and tail lights, mufflers, and working suspension. A complete set of rules will be available in the rules section at www.adrl.us in the coming days.

"The ADRL was founded on one simple philosophy: make the cars as safe as possible and then let them 'run what they brung and hope they brung enough,' " explained ADRL 10.5 series director Quick Vandiver. "Our competition committee felt that it was vital that we applied that same philosophy while creating the foundation of our 10.5 series.

"The 2007 ADRL rule book was scheduled to be released on Jan. 1 and the issues surrounding the 10.5 rules have delayed that a bit. With the outcome of today's meetings and the decisions that were made we will have the final version of our 2007 rules to SFI for review by this Friday and the final version available to our racers by Wednesday of next week at the latest."

In addition to the drastic rules changes the class also got a new name. Effective immediately, the ADRL's 10.5 class will be known as Extreme 10.5.

"'Pro 10.5' just does not do the ADRL's new version of 10.5 racing justice," said ADRL President Kenny Nowling. "Our version is going to be just what the new name says: extreme. I have to give credit where credit is due, though: it was actually ADRL 10.5 racer and defending Dragstock champion Steve Kirk Jr.'s idea. When I called him to inform him of our new direction he said, 'You are going to see some extreme 10.5 racing come Montgomery. As a matter of fact, you should rename the class Extreme 10.5,' so that's exactly what I did."