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With Tutterow\u2019s PDRA championship defense season rapidly approaching, he went to work preparing the car for its debut at the Carolina Nationals. The car fired up for the first time on Wednesday at Darlington Dragway and immediately showed potential out of the box.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe very first time off the jackstands we went .916. The next run, it went .913, trying to get to the middle of the track,\u201d Tutterow said. \u201cIt rattled the tires in the middle both times. Got it calmed down and got it through there and it went a .61 the first time it went to the stripe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t had the back wheels off the car since we got here,\u201d Tutterow continued. \u201cIt\u2019s just a testament to Larry Jeffers, his crew, and our group at the shop setting these cars up. We\u2019ve done so many of them now. We run a lot of Larry\u2019s cars. We run a lot of Bickel cars. We know what each chassis combo likes. Just setting the car up and getting it right off the bat, it\u2019s just a blessing, really, to run good that early with it. Dad just has a lot of knowledge with all that stuff \u2013 setting cars up and getting them to the track and making the best we can out of short runs. It shows right there in qualifying. We were the second-quickest screw car and the top speed of the screw cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
After three qualifying sessions at Darlington, Tutterow ended up No. 7 in the Pro Boost field with a 3.580 E.T. at 209.89. Californian Ed Marx was the only screw car to outqualify Tutterow in sixth, while the top five drivers all utilized centrifugal superchargers from ProCharger and Harts Charger. Those combos seemed to have an upper hand in qualifying, something Tutterow will keep tabs on as he fights for a second straight title.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 100% motivated to defend the championship,\u201d said Tutterow, who thanked Smith, as well as Brad and KB at the shop, and partners like Red Line Oil. \u201cI\u2019m excited. Justin\u2019s excited. The crew\u2019s excited. I think we\u2019re going to have a good year. Right now, it seems like we\u2019re quite outperformed. There was a screw car up in the mix with the top five of the other cars, but right now we have a fighting chance from seventh.\u201d<\/p>\n Talking with Tutterow on Saturday morning, Tutterow was optimistic about the race day to come. A substantial weather swing overnight brought temperatures down to the low 50s, providing conditions that benefit the screw-blown combo.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019ll help us catch up to those guys a little bit more,\u201d Tutterow said. \u201cWe\u2019ll have better air to make more power. The centrifugal stuff, it really isn\u2019t as critical on atmosphere because they can burn the water grains through the hot air charge, and our stuff, the better the air gets, the more boost we\u2019ll make.\u201d<\/p>\n In the opening round, Tutterow cut a perfect .000 reaction time against former Pro Nitrous standout Jay Cox and pedaled his way to a 3.693 at 209.50 to finish ahead of Cox and his 3.694 at 207.18. He then threw down a 3.575 at 213.47 in the second round to get past his 2025 championship challenger, two-time Pro Boost world champion Jason Harris, who had to lift to a 4.236.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tutterow\u2019s semifinal battle with Lyle Barnett will need to wait, as PDRA officials postponed the rest of eliminations due to cold track temperatures late Saturday night. The Carolina Nationals will wrap up on Thursday, April 16, at the PDRA East Coast Nationals at Darana Motorsports Park in Dunn, North Carolina.\u00a0<\/p>\n This story was originally published on March 30, 2026. The post Defending PDRA Pro Boost World Champion Ty Tutterow Debuts New Car at Carolina Nationals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last fall, Ty Tutterow finished the 2025 Red Line Oil PDRA Drag Racing Series season with an ultra-consistent car that carried him to three wins in five straight final rounds and the world championship in WS Construction Pro Boost presented by P2 Contracting and Ty-Drive. Rather than ride that momentum into 2026, Tutterow and Smith […]<\/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-103302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103302","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=103302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Tut-new-car-secondary.jpg\")
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