SWEET ASPIRATIONS

Jerry and Matthew Sweet added an 800ci Pro Stock mountain motor to chase HOT ROD Drag Week's Pro Street NA Record.

- MICHAEL GALIMI

Merely uttering the phrase Pro Street conjures up thoughts of the flamboyant show cars of the ’80s, but the Pro Street look actually goes back to the 1970s, when hot rodders began adopting NHRA Pro Stock suspension modifications in their street cars to fit larger rear tires, hence the name Pro Street.

Some experts in the field will also point to a couple of notorious street racers from the Detroit area who relied on big tires to gain an edge in illegal street races in the late ’70s as some of the first to coin the phrase. Pro Street mostly spent the ’80s on the showgrounds, but by 1992, HOT ROD magazine would push to get the cars back to the dragstrip. The world-famous HOT ROD Top 10 Fastest Street Car Shootout was born, and over 30 years later, big-tire street cars are still being hurled down the dragstrip in search of glory.