Kallee Mills grew up going to some of the most significant small-tire races in the history of drag racing. Her father, “Big Daddy” DeWayne Mills, was a pioneer in Radial vs. the World, making headlines and taking flight in his turbocharged “Golden Gorilla” ’68 Camaro. But the headlining drag radial category wasn’t the pinnacle – the dream destination – for Kallee. Instead, she wanted to go Pro Mod racing. And while her father primarily raced twin-turbocharged machines, Kallee was drawn to angry, screw-type superchargers. Today, she’s right where she wants to be, driving a screw-blown ’68 Camaro in her rookie season in Mid-West Drag Racing Series Stroud Safety Pro Mod.
Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared as one of two cover stories in DI #195, the Women of Power Issue, in July/August of 2025.
“Pro Mod has been the dream for me since the beginning,” Mills confirms. “As a kid racing Jr. Dragsters, we had a lot of Pro Mod races out at Tulsa Raceway Park – Throwdown in T-Town being one of them. The stands were packed. I always thought running Pro Mod would be the end goal for me.”
After a successful Jr. Dragster career, Mills moved up to X275 driving a single-turbo ’68 Camaro known as “Golden Panda” that mirrored DeWayne’s “Golden Gorilla.” She gradually proved she could handle a turbocharged small-tire car, and in 2020, she started making passes in the twin-turbocharged “Golden Kong” ’68 Camaro, which was one of the hottest cars on the Street Outlaws: No Prep Kings scene at the time. With all the different classes, shootouts, and formats at NPK events over the last few years, Mills notched victories in numerous final rounds. She then made her Pro 10.5 debut at the 2024 Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod, and with the turbocharged “Golden Gorilla” already in PDRA Pro Street trim, she ran the last three races of the PDRA season.
Between WSOPM and the PDRA events, Mills admits her interest in Pro Mod developed into “Pro Mod fever.” She started to take a serious look at moving to Pro Mod, which was getting hotter and hotter just as the No Prep Kings scene was cooling off.
Discussions with one of the team’s biggest supporters, Paul Hayden of American Pride Golf Cart Services, quickly escalated the Pro Mod move. Building on his sponsorship of several race teams, Hayden decided to buy a Pro Mod that Mills family friend and chassis builder Larry Jeffers put together for DeWayne a few years prior. Health concerns prompted DeWayne to sell the car to Texan Paul Brandt before he ever raced it, but in a full-circle moment, the car is back in the Mills circle with Hayden owning it and Kallee driving it.
“I really didn’t believe it,” Mills says of the moment she found out she’d be competing in Pro Mod this season. “I knew eventually it would happen. When it started coming together, I’m like, ‘Man, I’ve got everything now. It’s just up to me to perform,’ essentially. But at the end of the day, it was really a dream come true.”
Mills made her first passes in the Pro Mod during a pre-race test session leading up to the Mid-West Drag Racing Series season-opening Xtreme Texas Nationals at Xtreme Raceway Park. She quickly realized how her past experiences, especially racing in No Prep Kings, helped prepare her for the Pro Mod.
“The passes that I’ve made in the Pro Mod have been easier to handle than the No Prep Kings stuff on a no-prep surface,” she says. “There’s been some passes where I’ve had to drive the car pretty good and get it down through there. People are like, ‘Dang, Kallee, you’re a driver.’ I’m like, ‘That used to be every single pass at No Prep Kings.’ For me, anyways.”
When DeWayne and tuner Lee White were setting up the Pro Mod for Kallee, they designed everything to largely replicate the components in the other cars she’d driven to make the transition as seamless as possible. It also makes things easier when Kallee is driving two cars at one event.
“Everything inside the cars, we’ve made pretty much the same,” Mills says. “Where the parachute is, where the shifter is – everything is the same in each car. That way I don’t have to change my driving a whole lot when I get in the different cars. When all the cars are the same, it’s like your desk at home. You know where your stapler is. You have the same keyboard. You know where everything is.”
The big difference with the Pro Mod, Mills says, is how quickly it reacts, and consequently, how quickly she needs to react as a driver.
“When the car goes into tire shake or something, everything happens so fast – so much faster than what I’m used to before,” Mills says. “You see things and you don’t really have time to react. You just have to hope your gut knows what’s going on. Especially when you’re going .860, .880 to the 60-foot. It just happens so quick up front. That’s something that’s been different than any other car that I’ve driven.”
Mills went into the MWDRS Xtreme Texas Nationals with just a few test passes in the American Pride “Scarlett” Camaro, then added a few more during the pre-race test day at XRP. She made it into the field in the No. 7 spot and scored her first round win in Pro Mod, winning with a 3.676. Mills isn’t shy about the fact she was looking for more out of her debut weekend, though.
“Honestly, we were hoping to win,” she says. “When we made it down, I went 3.67 or something, I was happy, but I wouldn’t say I was overly excited about it. I wanted to win. I’m super competitive, so I’m out there searching for my first win. But it was good to qualify and to get a round win out of the way. Nobody wants to lose first round. I think that’s the worst round for me anyways. I think I get more nervous for first round than I do a final.”
In a sentimental homecoming to Tulsa Raceway Park for the spring Throwdown in T-Town, the same race where Mills grew up watching Pro Mods, she qualified No. 9 and earned a side-by-side first-round win over Todd Martin, running a 3.731 to beat his 3.744.
“When we went to Tulsa, I was really, really hoping we could get that win because that was my hometown,” she says. “That’s one of the races that I’ve raced at since I was a kid. I raced Jr. Dragsters at the Throwdown. We had a little issue going into third round of qualifying on Saturday morning where one of the hoses got left loose on the car. We didn’t get to make the third qualifier. If we would have made the third qualifier, we would have qualified a little bit higher so we wouldn’t have had to run the No. 1 qualifier second round. But we can ‘what if’ it all day. We had a good first round.”
Mills ended up on the wrong end of a good race in the second round, where she left .003 seconds ahead of Ron Muenks and kept him honest, but Muenks finished first with a 3.662 to Mills’ 3.679. Mills went into the race knowing what to expect, as she grew up around Muenks, car owner Dave Pierce, and tuner Jeff Pierce since the Pierces also live in the Tulsa area.
“I knew that their car was fast and I knew that I had to do my job on the tree, and so did Ron,” Mills says. “We both had killer lights. We both ran down there. I think it was probably the closest race of the weekend. With my reaction time and eighth-mile time, I think we would have won any other round. But to go out there in my second race and run that close with the No. 1 qualifier and have a good race like that and them know lining up next to me that they can’t be slouching was definitely cool.”
Mills moved on to the Shakedown at M’Town at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan, where she pulled double duty competing in MWDRS Pro Mod in the screw-blown “Scarlett” Camaro and in Duck X Productions’ N/T Outlaw 275 Shootout in the supercharged “Golden Kong” Camaro.
“I’d always dreamed of having two or three cars sitting out there for me to get in and run and be competitive in all different classes,” Mills says. “We could have actually taken the 10.5 car – that class is one of my favorites – but with just three crew members, we just couldn’t manage it all.”
Sure enough, the two cars they brought kept the Kallee Mills Motorsports camp busy. They were trying to work out a few issues with Kong to prepare for a bunch of big no-time races. The pressure was on in Pro Mod, as 25 cars attempted to qualify for the 16-car field with stellar conditions. She went into the final qualifying session solidly in the field, but things changed by the time she hit the track.
“I was about to roll in to pre-stage and I looked up at the scoreboard and it said 3.65 with a four or something. It was me – I was the bump,” Mills says. “There were still cars behind me that were sitting on the outside that could have bumped me out. I’m like, ‘Oh, God, I hope I can get this down through there and we can qualify decently.’ I ended up running a 3.601. I don’t think I’ve ever been that excited in the car. I was pumped. I couldn’t believe we went that fast. I knew that my team could do it, but I didn’t think that we would do it on our third weekend out.”
Mills was still amped up when she went into eliminations, as she went .004 red in the first round, then .007 red in the first round of the Slammers class, essentially the buyback class for Pro Mod. She shook the tires in the main race, but threw down a 3.62 in the Slammers round.
“I was pushing it close in both cars on the lights,” Mills says. “There were a couple of us that were struggling going red. But I’d much rather have a close red light than be .200 on the tree and losing on holeshots every weekend, I guess. We can put some delay in the box at those racetracks where the lights are kind of quick. I noticed that people that were usually pretty good on the tree – me, Lyle [Barnett], Ken [Quartuccio], and those guys – they all went red, too. I always beat myself up pretty bad, though. I was really, really bummed.”
Still, Mills found redemption when she won in the N/T Outlaw 275 Shootout, earning her first Duck X Productions jacket and hat. She also had another more personal highlight – she officially beat her dad’s career-best E.T. of 3.62. Having grown up watching him do big things in the sport, it meant a lot to get one up on him.
“There was part of me that was even more excited about that than the fact that we went 3.60,” Mills laughs. “I’m so thankful for his support and all the knowledge and advice that he gives me. Because without him, I wouldn’t be the driver that I am. He knows exactly what to say and how to say it to me to make me want to be a better driver, want to win races, be competitive. I say that if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here because it’s true. He says the same thing: ‘If it wasn’t for you, I would have already sold all the stuff. We would have went boating all summer and going on vacations.’ The memories that we’re making as a family, you can’t replace them.”
Beyond her parents, Mills also credits car owners Paul and Jeanne Hayden, tuner Lee White, and crew members Brendan Russell, Taylor Strange, and Mikey Simms for their contributions.
“I’m very thankful for all of them,” she says. “We’re more of a family. They’re not my team, they’re my guys. They take care of me. I’m very, very, very thankful for all their help because without them, we couldn’t do it.”
With a couple round wins and a quick career-best E.T. now on her scorecard, Mills is looking ahead to her next goals, which include breaking into the 3.50s and earning her first win in the Pro Mod.
“I want to continue to push forward and do good in the Pro Mod ranks,” Mills says. “I know Wes [Buck, DI founder and editorial director] has the Pound-for-Pound Pro Mod rankings. I think it would be cool to be up there with the list of legends that are on there.”
Mills entered the Pro Mod ranks wanting to win right out of the gate, and three races worth of tough competition haven’t tempered her goals. But at the same time, she realizes competition in the Pro Mod world is perhaps at an all-time high across numerous different series and organizations. She’s going to give it her all and hope that it’s enough to turn on win lights against both fellow rookies and drivers who’ve been doing this for much longer.
“At the end of the day, we can say we want to win all we want, but there’s a lot more losers than there are winners,” she admits. “If we just continue to go out and do good and run personal bests and have a consistent car and a good driver that gets the car down through there and does her job on the tree, you can’t ask for much more.
“I’m pretty hard on myself,” Mills continues. “Even if I win and I have a bad light or not a good light, I’m still hard on myself. I could win, but I want to be better on [the tree]. Even if you lose a round, if you have a personal best and a great reaction time, and the other person is right there with you, that’s just a race.”
Along with MWDRS Pro Mod events, Mills plans to enter a few PDRA Pro Boost events this season. Once the MWDRS and PDRA seasons wrap up in October, the Mills team will shift their full focus to preparing for the second annual Drag Illustrated Winter Series at Bradenton Motorsports Park. Kallee won in the no-time class driving “Kong” at the second race of the 2024/2025 Winter Series, the U.S. Street Nationals, and she’s competed in the Pro 10.5 Challenge with the twin-turbo “Golden Gorilla” at the World Series of Pro Mod for the last two years.
“I haven’t missed a Winter Series race ever,” points out Mills, who reached the semifinals in this year’s Pro 10.5 Challenge. “When the World Series of Pro Mod was just a single race, we went down and supported Scott Palmer and helped him out. Even when you’re not racing Pro Mod, when we’re just sitting in the stands, you can just feel the excitement and the competition and how cutthroat it is. The guys and girls there run 3.63 and they’re potentially getting bumped.”
This winter, though, Mills won’t be sitting in the stands. She’ll be right there in the mix facing off against world champions, big-money Pro Mod race winners, record holders, and icons from all over drag racing. She could line up against six-time NHRA Pro Stock world champion Erica Enders or four-time NHRA Top Fuel world champion Antron Brown, or fellow NPK standouts like Shawn “Murder Nova” Ellington and Mike Bowman. It’s a big opportunity, but it’s one she’s been training for since she was that young Jr. Dragster driver sitting in the stands watching Pro Mods blast down the track at Tulsa.
“When you have all the baddest Pro Mod drivers in the world down there for those three races, there’s no telling what could happen,” Mills says. “That’s definitely on my bucket list: run Pro Mod down there at the World Series and going rounds there.”
The post WOMEN OF POWER 2025: Kallee Mills’ Pro Mod Dream Is In Motion first appeared on Drag Illustrated.
