{"id":103132,"date":"2026-03-02T18:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/kings-comeback-2025-wsopm-champ-steve-kings-wins-outlaw-beer-wild-card-shootout\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T18:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:44:07","slug":"kings-comeback-2025-wsopm-champ-steve-kings-wins-outlaw-beer-wild-card-shootout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/kings-comeback-2025-wsopm-champ-steve-kings-wins-outlaw-beer-wild-card-shootout\/","title":{"rendered":"King\u2019s Comeback: 2025 WSOPM Champ Steve Kings Wins Outlaw Beer Wild Card Shootout"},"content":{"rendered":"

When reigning WSOPM winner Steve King just missed out on qualifying for the main 32-car Pro Mod field at the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod presented by Red Line Oil, his chances at returning to the WSOPM Winner\u2019s Circle didn\u2019t end. Thanks to the Outlaw Light Beer Wild Card Shootout, a separate five-round race for the drivers who didn\u2019t qualify, he got to race on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

King, who drove Gene Pilot\u2019s screw-blown \u201cSavage 3.0\u201d Corvette to the $150,000 final-round win over Stevie \u201cFast\u201d Jackson in last year\u2019s WSOPM final round, ended up No. 37 on the final qualifying sheet for this year\u2019s race. He delivered a best of 3.604 seconds at 207.15 mph, and Robin Roberts claimed the No. 32 spot with a 3.602 at 211.00. Just two thousandths of a second and a few mph separated King from his shot at back-to-back titles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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But King and the Pilot Racing team went to work anyway in the Outlaw Light Beer Wild Card Shootout, running a 3.697 to beat past NHRA Pro Stock world champ Bo Butner in the opening round. His 3.632 to beat Frank Falter IV tied Luis de Leon for low E.T. of the second round. King was then quickest of the quarterfinals with his 3.614 to take out Robert Costa. King\u2019s rollercoaster of a weekend continued in the semifinals as he went red by .002 on a 3.627-second pass that easily would\u2019ve beat de Leon, who suffered a major parts failure. When de Leon bypassed the scales, King was reinstated because he did cross the scales.<\/p>\n

\u201cA little semifinal round action there \u2013 I kind of feel a little bit down on that episode \u2013 I did red light but he bypassed the scales,\u201d King said. \u201cI mean, how often do you get a buy-back round in Pro Mod racing?\u201d<\/p>\n

King made the most of his second chance in the second-chance race, leaving first against 2023 WSOPM Second-Chance Shootout winner Melanie Salemi in the $15,000 final round and charging to a 3.611 at 207.27. Salemi slowed to a 4.336 at 121.10.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe had to run our teammate in the finals,\u201d who gave a shoutout to the Salemi family and their G-Force Race Cars and Resolution Racing Services. \u201cThose guys were over here in the semis thrashing \u2013 all their guys, all my guys, we had the motor tore apart in a million pieces. We want both team cars in the final, which we ended up with.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re happy with the win,\u201d King continued. \u201cJon [Salemi] gave us a great car all weekend. Came up a little short on the A-feature to get into the main race, and those guys are lucky we didn\u2019t get in there because we made some good runs today in the heat. During the night time sessions we\u2019re not picking up like we need to, but during the day, this car can run with any car here.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published on March 2, 2026. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post King\u2019s Comeback: 2025 WSOPM Champ Steve Kings Wins Outlaw Beer Wild Card Shootout<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When reigning WSOPM winner Steve King just missed out on qualifying for the main 32-car Pro Mod field at the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod presented by Red Line Oil, his chances at returning to the WSOPM Winner\u2019s Circle didn\u2019t end. Thanks to the Outlaw Light Beer Wild Card Shootout, a separate five-round […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}