{"id":104555,"date":"2026-08-13T18:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T18:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/richard-reagan-makes-strong-push-for-pro-street-championship-at-pdra-thunder-valley-throwdown\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T18:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T18:44:10","slug":"richard-reagan-makes-strong-push-for-pro-street-championship-at-pdra-thunder-valley-throwdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/richard-reagan-makes-strong-push-for-pro-street-championship-at-pdra-thunder-valley-throwdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Reagan Makes Strong Push for Pro Street Championship at PDRA Thunder Valley Throwdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Reagan entered the\u00a0PDRA\u00a0Thunder Valley Throwdown sitting fourth in points\u00a0in\u00a0Liberty\u2019s Gears Pro Street presented by KTR Drag Racing,\u00a0and threw himself right into championship contention with his win in Bristol. Reagan saved his best run of the weekend for the finals in his screw-blown \u201991 Mustang, using a 3.951 at 193.24 mph to outrun class veteran Tim Essick\u2019s 3.986 at 191.00 in his \u201cBrown Sugar\u201d \u201918 Mustang.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just kept picking away at it, trying to make it leave harder and make it run hard through the middle as we could. Just tried to do a little more each round,\u201d Reagan said regarding making it through a tough day of eliminations.<\/p>\n

Reagan qualified No. 2 with a 3.973 at 193.71 mph and\u00a0consistently got quicker with each round on race day. He\u00a0was scheduled to race Tommy Youmans in round one,\u00a0but unfortunately, Youmans suffered engine failure\u00a0in his twin-turbo, Pontiac-powered GTO\u00a0in qualifying and couldn\u2019t make the call, giving Reagan a bye run where he ran 4.030 at 191.48.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In\u00a0the quarterfinals,\u00a0Reagan\u00a0ran 3.965 at 193.10 to defeat Jerry Morgano\u2019s twin-turbo \u201902 Mustang, who slowed to a 4.491. Reagan then took out No. 3 qualifier Mikey Sasina in the semifinals, using a 3.964 at 192.77 to better Sasina\u2019s 3.992 at 196.50.<\/p>\n

Essick qualified eighth with a 4.030 at 190.27 mph, then defeated the most recent event winner on the tour, Joel Wensley Jr., in round one. Subsequent victories over Andy Mac in the Fletcher Cox-owned, nitrous-assisted \u201cTraining Day\u201d \u201969 Camaro and Scott Kincaid in his silver screw-blown \u201969 Camaro placed Essick in the final round.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Tara Bowker photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the highlights in Bristol for PDRA Pro Street was seeing 17 entries on the qualifying sheet, the largest turnout the class has seen so far in 2026, including a couple radial veterans making their Pro Street debut.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Longtime Pro 275 competitor \u2013 and father of reigning PDRA Super Street world champion Connor McGee \u2013 Brian McGee joined the Pro Street ranks with his nitrous-powered \u201967 Mustang built by Jeff and Patrick Miller. Meanwhile, Chad Henderson brought out the very familiar black screw-blown 3rd-Gen Camaro formerly known as \u201cCan\u2019t Get Right,\u201d which Kye Kelley drove to victory at the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals in 2024.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a great class,\u201d said Reagan. \u201cI mean, the competition has just gotten\u2026I think it was a 3.98 to No. 9 was a 4.05. It\u2019s anybody\u2019s race, you know? You just gotta do your job. Sometimes it gets hard to do it, but, yeah, I think it\u2019s in a great place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

With his victory, Reagan now sits just one point behind class leader Blake Denton in the standings, and after going through the toughest field of the season should have plenty of confidence heading into the last two races of the year. As for what it will take to end the year as the world champion? Reagan is pretty blunt on the subject.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, maybe we can win the next two. Just have do the best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next race on the Red Line Oil PDRA Drag Racing Series tour will be Drag Wars presented by Big Stuff Total Power Management on August 27-29. It will be the PDRA\u2019s second stop of the season at Galot Motorsports Park in Benson, North Carolina.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published on August 13, 2026. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post Richard Reagan Makes Strong Push for Pro Street Championship at PDRA Thunder Valley Throwdown<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Reagan entered the\u00a0PDRA\u00a0Thunder Valley Throwdown sitting fourth in points\u00a0in\u00a0Liberty\u2019s Gears Pro Street presented by KTR Drag Racing,\u00a0and threw himself right into championship contention with his win in Bristol. Reagan saved his best run of the weekend for the finals in his screw-blown \u201991 Mustang, using a 3.951 at 193.24 mph to outrun class veteran […]<\/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-104555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104555","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=104555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}