People slept on Carl Stevens Jr. prior to the 2018 Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod.
Wes Buck was not one of them.
“I’ve always respected his capabilities, and I knew when he accepted his invitation in 2018 that he’d be a problem, that he’d have a shot at winning it,” Buck says. “If you paid attention to Pro Mod racing at all, you knew Carl was a hitter. Matter of fact, he was kind of known for being a long ball hitter. It reminds me a little bit of Jason Scruggs back in the day, a guy who just went to the track looking to set records as much as anything else.”
Stevens had the receipts. Three years earlier, the New Jersey engine builder had driven a Camaro he built himself to the first 230-mph eighth-mile pass by a door car. He had watched the first Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod in 2017 from the outside and wanted in.
What he walked into in August of 2018 was a race that had grown up in a hurry. The first one had been 16 cars and a dare. The second brought more than two dozen of the best legal Pro Mod teams in the country up Thunder Mountain, with Erica Enders in the field, Mike Bowman back to defend, five rounds of eliminations instead of four, and $100,000 waiting for one driver and nobody else. The scoreboards at Bandimere Speedway stayed dark again.
“That was the baddest race I’d ever been to,” Stevens said years later.
It did not start well. He had never raced at altitude. “I couldn’t even get the engine to idle at first,” he said. The converter came out of Jim Bell’s ’69 Camaro about a dozen times before they had it sorted. Then the car made a pass, and the mood in the pit changed.
On race day he got quicker every single time he staged it. A 5.93 to beat Marc Caruso. A 5.897 to beat Enders. A 5.880 in the quarterfinals to beat Bowman, the defending champion, by seven thousandths of a second. A 5.863 in the semifinals when Michael Biehle went red.
That left Danny Rowe and one more decision. Stevens already had the numbers to win. His crew told him to leave the car alone. Stevens, who built the engine, tuned it and drove it, opened the laptop.
“As the tuner, I was looking at the data and thought I could make it go a little better, so I had to try.”
Buck was not surprised then and is not surprised now.
“Carl is a polarizing character in this space. He’s hardcore. He’s intense. He’s confident. I like it,” Buck says. “He’s got a little more edge to him than a lot of people you encounter in drag racing, and I think it makes him more interesting. I’m not at all surprised that he turned up the dial for that final round. I don’t know that he knows any other way to do it. He knows one way to race – wide open, all out, no holds barred. He’s got New Jersey native written all over him.”
Rowe left first. Stevens ran him down with a 5.856 at 246.26 mph. It was the quickest pass the World Series of Pro Mod had ever seen, and it remains the quickest Pro Mod run in the history of Bandimere Speedway.
“The people probably heard screaming inside the car as I was turning off the track,” Stevens said.
In the winner’s circle he was about to ask somebody to pinch him. A champagne cork caught him in the nose first.
His father was standing right there. Carl Stevens Sr. put his son in a race car, does the chassis work on everything his son tunes, and is, in Junior’s words, “my best friend.”
“I’ve always known Carl and his dad as a unit. You never saw one without the other,” Buck says. “And his dad is just an awesome guy. Not the kind of guy you’d want to tangle with, either. He’s got bear claws for hands. When you shake his hand, he makes you feel like a child. And they’re grinders. They’ll work all day, all night, whatever it takes.”
That night the grinding was over.
“The winner’s circle was surreal,” Buck says. “Those guys had really worked their asses off that week. It didn’t come easy, and you’re racing against the best in the world. No easy shots. So I think it was joy and relief, simultaneously. The work was done, and the work paid off. Carl’s dad, despite being a bear of a man, he was emotional. Carl was torn up. Jim Bell was beside himself. It was a legit drag racing moment, and I think we all, collectively, knew that we were part of something bigger than us.”
Stevens said it his own way. “The biggest thing is all the racing I do with my dad. Having him here and being able to win this huge event, the biggest event of our lives, together is something I’ll never forget.”
Bell, who had won big races of his own, called it the biggest win ever. Stevens went further.
“Being on the biggest stage for Pro Mod and getting the win, it’s just incredible. The money certainly doesn’t hurt, but on this grand stage that we’ve been given, in my opinion there’s nothing bigger.”
Here is what the win did for Carl Stevens Jr. It settled the question. He builds engines and tunes race cars for a living, and he had just beaten the deepest Pro Mod field anybody had assembled with his own engine, his own tune-up and his own hands on the wheel. A year later he said the win “solidified” what his program could do.
Then he mostly got out of the seat and went back to making other people fast.
“I’d be lying to you if I told you I didn’t enjoy driving them,” he said in 2025. “I enjoy just the tuning aspect now and just being behind it and making it happen.”
He has made plenty happen. In January of 2024 at Bradenton Motorsports Park, Todd Moyer went 5.144 in a Camaro that Stevens built and tuned, the quickest quarter-mile pass a door car had ever made. In November of 2025, Jimmy Taylor went 5.114 at Maryland International Raceway in another Stevens car, the quickest full-bodied doorslammer pass ever recorded, after going 3.387 at 240 mph in the eighth mile. Stevens was on the radio for all of it. His dad did the chassis.
Seven drivers have won the World Series of Pro Mod. Only one of them has spent the years since rewriting the record book from the other side of the laptop.
“Carl is such a fantastic representation of Pro Mod – a do-it-yourselfer extraordinaire,” Buck says. “That’s relatable. The car community and the racing industry are full of people who take pride in doing the work themselves, getting their hands dirty, building things, making things, tuning things. Carl should be a hero to our entire community.”
The Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod returns March 5-7, 2027, at Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas.
See all seven champions. Get on the ticket list.
The post Carl Stevens Jr. on World Series of Pro Mod: “In My Opinion, There’s Nothing Bigger” first appeared on Drag Illustrated.
