![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mountain-motor-pro-stock-winner-1.jpg\")
This season, the Mountain Motor Pro Stock class decided as a group to focus on the opportunities presented by the latest iteration of the IHRA. Never-before-seen prize money, pro class billing, and hospitality were among the attractive aspects. Pluchino won the first two races and added semifinal finishes at the other two, putting himself in the position to join fellow Long Islander John Montecalvo as a season champion in three different series.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a 12-2 round record. We had almost a five-round lead at this point for the championship,\u201d Pluchino says. \u201cWe\u2019ve got two wins out of the five events we\u2019ve ever attended since the new IHRA has existed. Things were going well for us until the news broke.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pluchino didn\u2019t have any warm and fuzzy feelings when IHRA announced the cancellation of three events in late June. He saw it as an understandable pulling back from an ambitious initial approach to the season. But when the rest of the season as a whole was cancelled a couple weeks later, Pluchino felt a lot of different emotions. Most notably, he was upset for his team and supporters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe put so much effort into this as a race team that it crushes you as a competitor to not be able to see it through,\u201d Pluchino says. \u201cWe live and work for championships. We really felt like this year, we were going to make another one happen. The trophy is what we do it for. The prize money that came with it this year was something that would have been huge for a team like ours. That was the added bonus on top of that championship trophy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the first thing you think of \u2013 not for myself or my dad, who\u2019s the team owner \u2013 but also for my sponsor, and for all my partners who have done so much to help us reach our goals this year,\u201d Pluchino continues. \u201cWe came into this season knowing it would be the toughest year of Mountain Motor Pro Stock, maybe ever. And we really dug deep to be as competitive as we were. It wasn\u2019t just because we had a couple good races. We worked at getting better and being as prepared as we could be to have those results. I was proud of where we were at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pluchino\u2019s mindset quickly moved to finding a solution. His Kaase-powered Ross Environmental Services Mustang was performing at perhaps an all-time best. The class itself was also at a high point, with more than 20 cars showing up at the last race. Drag Illustrated Senior Editor Craig Cook declared it \u201cIHRA\u2019s most exciting class\u201d in this June 24 op-ed piece<\/a>. Pluchino wanted to keep that momentum going.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s really the most important part of it, right? It\u2019s the future of this class,\u201d Pluchino says. \u201cI don\u2019t want to race anything else. I don\u2019t want to race a fuel car. I don\u2019t necessarily want to race a Pro Mod car. I don\u2019t want to bracket race. I live and breathe Mountain Motor Pro Stock. So now you think, \u201cOK, we have all this invested into a Mountain Motor Pro Stock car. What\u2019s next? Where do we go from here to make sure we\u2019re making the right decisions for every team involved in the future of the sport and class?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s frustrating for Pluchino and other Mountain Motor Pro Stock stakeholders is the fact that the class repeatedly ends up in the position of having to repair and rebuild itself. As Pluchino points out, there\u2019s not just one single factor leading to these predicaments.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSome things were out of our control, just deals that fell apart due to various reasons, and there\u2019s been some division in the class as well,\u201d Pluchino says as he reflects on the class\u2019s rocky history. \u201cBetween those two things, we\u2019ve had some bum luck. We\u2019ve had too many places to race at times to where the class wasn\u2019t able to put on the show that we were able to do this year when we stick together and have one place to race. But unfortunately, right now, we had one place, and we just lost that place.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo again, we need to now stick together and make the right decision for us, for the people who support us, and for the future of the class because there\u2019s really no class who\u2019s put on the show that we have this year, especially in the IHRA,\u201d Pluchino asserts. \u201cThe level of competition that we displayed this year at the four events that we participated in was incredible. We had between 23 and 26 cars at every race. We had fields separated by a few hundredths. We had a large percentage of rounds being decided by thousandths. The racing was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n With that momentum in mind, Pluchino is optimistic that the future can be bright. The class has a lot going for it, but the group must act quickly and it must act together.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe cars weren\u2019t all sold. The teams are still intact. The same level of competition that we\u2019ve displayed all year long, which was really second to none, is still there,\u201d Pluchino says. \u201cSo as long as this group, who has had trouble sticking together in the past, is able to stick together, then we\u2019ll be just fine. We\u2019ll get it figured out. We\u2019ll come up with a deal that works best for us and whichever organization we race with. But the most important piece of this is sticking together and bringing 20-25 cars to every race and putting on an event that people rush to the stands to see Mountain Motor Pro Stock.\u201d<\/p>\n While the class is still working to find a season-long home with a national series, a one-off race has already been added to the schedule. The 49th annual Cornwell Quality Tools Night Under Fire at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio, will host a Mountain Motor Pro Stock shootout as part of its incredible lineup on August 1. Mountain Motor Pro Stock will compete on the same stage as NHRA nitro stars like Doug Kalitta, Jordan Vandergriff, Ron Capps, Maddi Gordon, Spencer Hyde, and Cruz Pedregon, as well as a host of exhibition acts. For the first time in the event\u2019s history, fans around the world can stream it live on FloRacing<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThanks to the amazing people at Summit Motorsports Park and Ross Environmental Services and the other people who are jumping on board, soon to be announced, we\u2019re going to have an opportunity in front of a packed house at one of the nicest facilities in drag racing,\u201d Pluchino says. \u201cThat\u2019s going to be our first stop right now. We\u2019re very excited about that. We are going to be racing for a great prize in front of a ton of fans on a historic facility.\u201d<\/p>\n Night Under Fire will serve as a proof of concept: Mountain Motor Pro Stock can be not just another class to fill track time, but a true part of the show. Pluchino and numerous behind-the-scenes players are ringing phones, rounding up funding, and working to make sure Mountain Motor Pro Stock has opportunities to race. It\u2019s up to the class as a whole to continue providing value, whether that\u2019s as a booked-in show or as a touring class.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo far, the teams have shown that we\u2019re going to stick together, and I\u2019m hopeful that that\u2019s going to remain that way,\u201d Pluchino says. \u201cWe are looking at all possibilities at this point for the remainder of this year. Then we\u2019ll step into what 2027 looks like once we get that ironed out. If anybody would like to contact us about opportunities in 2026, we\u2019re putting all those down on paper right now, trying to sort out what looks best for those organizations and tracks as well as for our class. But again, when Mountain Motor Pro Stock shows up at your event, we need to be there with 16-plus cars with an A+ show. And that\u2019s our plan. As long as we can keep doing that, everything else will fall into place.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally published on July 15, 2026. The post Johnny Pluchino Discusses Mountain Motor Pro Stock\u2019s Path Forward Following IHRA Cancellation<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When the IHRA announced the cancellation of the remaining Outlaw Nitro Series races on July 9, Mountain Motor Pro Stock was sidelined for the umpteenth time in the category\u2019s relatively short history. Now, participants like multi-series world champion Johnny Pluchino are working diligently to ensure the class has a future.\u00a0 Pluchino has been around Mountain […]<\/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-104321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104321","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=104321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/DSC_7311.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mountain-motor-pro-stock-final.jpg\")
![\"Drag](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DI_flat_red-e1711481551475.png\")
<\/p>\n