Spencer Hyde entered the 2023 Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod as a relative unknown on the national Pro Modified scene. He had success in his native Canada, but his 2023 victory over Kurt Steding in the $100,000 final round put him on an international pedestal. He’s since continued to prove his driving prowess by picking up a PDRA Pro Boost win in one of the class’s toughest fields, and he’s climbed the ranks by competing in NHRA Top Fuel with the license he earned just days before his WSOPM win.
This weekend, Hyde is back at Bradenton to compete in the sixth running of the WSOPM, which will pay $150,000 to the winner, and he has another nitro license in hand. He recently completed his license crossover in Jim Head’s Funny Car in preparation for a full season in the NHRA Mission Foods Series driving for the Columbus, Ohio-based contractor. The Gainesville preseason test session was Hyde’s first time driving a Funny Car, and it was an eye-opening experience even for someone with his experience.
“I don’t even know how to explain it,” Hyde said. “It’s totally different than anything else I’ve ever drove. It’s nothing like the Pro Mod and it’s nothing like the Top Fuel dragster, which I was expecting it to be a hybrid of the two. And it’s nothing like either of them. This thing is a violent animal. There’s nothing else to describe it.”
Cold conditions prevented the veteran Head Racing team from making full pulls to the 1,000-foot finish line under power, but Hyde got to experience tire shake and all the things that come with a less-than-perfect run. He still ran into the 3-second range on passes with early numbers that suggested they would’ve been in the high 3.80s if under power through the stripe.
“On the clean runs, it feels similar to the dragster,” Hyde said. “It’s the same acceleration, same lock-up feeling, but the engine is in front of you, you’re sitting right on top of the tires, and you feel everything. Even on the runs where it made it down, it felt like it shouldn’t [make it down]. You feel everything. It’s pretty wild. It was not really at all what I was expecting. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, it’s just its own beast.”
One of the biggest announcements of the 2024 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) Show came on Friday afternoon when it was announced that Hyde would make his Funny Car debut this season driving for Head. Casual fans might’ve been surprised, but anyone who pays close attention to all levels of the sport realized Hyde has been preparing for this opportunity for years. Now, he’s getting the chance to prove he has what it takes to compete on the sport’s highest level.
“I had never even sat in Funny Car, so I’m sure there were a lot of people sitting back like, ‘Why him?’ and ‘He’s never done it,’ and whatnot,” Hyde admitted. “It was nice to be able to get in the car and go make some runs and show everybody that I can do it. I’m very excited for Gainesville.”
For the next week or so, though, Hyde is still Spencer Hyde the Pro Mod driver. Spencer Hyde the World Series of Pro Mod champion. It’s a title he wears proudly, especially this week as he attempts to become the first repeat winner in what will be his last Pro Mod race until possibly the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals at Bradenton in December.
“I’ve got to put [the Funny Car deal] on the shelf for another week, and I’ve got high expectations rolling in the World Series,” said Hyde, driver of the screw-blown “Jack & The Green Stock” ’69 Camaro. “I’m looking to run a good race down there. Obviously, we’ve won that one before and I would love to be the first two-time winner of that event. We’ve got a good car and Mark [Savage] is very capable of putting it in the winner’s circle. That’s my focus here for the next five or six days, then it’ll switch right back to the Funny Car.”
The WSOPM – and the inaugural Drag Illustrated Winter Series that wraps up with WSOPM this week – has reached an unprecedented level of competition. It’s grown and evolved in just the two years since Hyde won the first Bradenton iteration of the event in 2023. What started at Bandimere Speedway outside Denver in 2017 billed as “the biggest, richest Pro Mod race in the history of the known universe” can now claim that title without dispute. More than 80 drivers from the U.S., Canada, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia will attempt to qualify for the 32-car field this weekend.
“Nothing against the World Series prior to Bradenton, but I think moving that deal to Bradenton, taking a few years off and starting with a clean canvas, that race really catapulted the Outlaw Pro Mod scene,” Hyde said. “That’s sprung into a three-race series. I don’t really see any negatives to it. I think it’s all positive.
“It’s really good for our sport and it’s really good for that class,” Hyde continued. “You’re not getting 84 fuel cars at any event, ever. You’re not getting 84 Pro Stock cars. You’re not getting 84 with really anything other than sportsman racing. So, I think it proves that Pro Mod’s as strong as it’s ever been and it’s got the diversity. It’s got competitors from all kinds of different countries, not just North America. You’ve got people from Australia and Sweden and Puerto Rico and Bahrain and Qatar. They’re all there. They all love Pro Mod. I think that this only helps that, and I hope it can stick around and keep going because it’s good for the sport.”
Even though that all means more competition standing in Hyde’s way, he’s all for it. He knows from experience that a quick car and a quick-reacting driver aren’t the only elements it takes to win here. It also takes some WSOPM magic.
“The goal is to go there and qualify and win the race,” Hyde said, “but it’s so tight and the competition’s so stiff that you’ve just got to hope that a few bounces go your way and you get a couple of lucky rounds and you get the job done.”
This story was originally published on February 25, 2025. 
The post With Funny Car License Complete, Spencer Hyde Focuses on Another WSOPM Win first appeared on Drag Illustrated.