Three-time NHRA Pro Mod winner Lyle Barnett is no longer sidelined, he announced Tuesday night during the Shake and Bake Show. Barnett recently signed on with team owner Scott Tidwell to drive one of his Scott Tidwell Racing entries in the 2024 NHRA Pro Mod Series. The deal will also see Barnett compete in the \u201cwinter series\u201d outlaw Pro Mod races at Bradenton Motorsports Park over the offseason.<\/p>\n
Known for his success in drag radial and no-prep racing, Barnett made his NHRA Pro Mod debut in 2021 driving a turbocharged Camaro fielded by Elite Motorsports and Modern Racing. He won two races that season, then went on to win the prestigious NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis in 2022.<\/p>\n
Barnett and Erica Enders (Chris Sears photo)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cFirst off, I want to thank Richard Freeman, Justin Elkes, Erica Enders, and all of my teammates at Elite Motorsports for the opportunity to race for them,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cThey took a chance on somebody that had never driven a Pro Mod before. I had a lot of success over there. Elite has three NHRA Pro Modified wins, and I was just fortunate to be the one behind the wheel when those happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just can\u2019t thank those people enough,\u201d Barnett continued. \u201cThey\u2019re the reason I was able to prove that I have what it takes to do it out there. Mason Wright, the new wheelman for them, is doing a great job and wish them nothing but the best and will continue to support them in anything they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from a one-race deal to fill in for Russia\u2019s Dmitry Samorukov at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals near Chicago, Barnett has been on the sidelines for the 2023 NHRA season. He\u2019s also made laps during testing as a fill-in driver, staying sharp and ready to jump into action when called on. That opportunity came last month during No Mercy 14 through a conversation with Tidwell.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was fortunate to be able to take advantage of the substitute driver program that NHRA implemented this year and drove for the Russians at one race,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cSo I did get to at least make an appearance this year, but I was trying to find sponsorship, put something together, but didn\u2019t really know where I was going. A conversation sitting on the wall at South Georgia turned into a full ride for me with Scott Tidwell and the Pro Line camp next year, tuned by Steve Petty and Brandon Stroud. That\u2019s a championship-caliber team over there. I\u2019m very thankful that they saw something in me to invite me to come over there and drive for them. Our sole goal is 100% to win an NHRA world championship in Pro Modified.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteve Petty is a multi-time champion as a tuner and he\u2019s had some great drivers drive for him,\u201d Barnett added \u201cTo think that he saw fit for me to drive for him is a big deal. I\u2019ve dreamed my whole life to run for a championship over there. That\u2019s definitely a car and a team that can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tidwell\u2019s camp includes numerous cars, as well as the best of the best parts and pieces to run any of the three supercharged combinations allowed in NHRA Pro Mod, be it screw blowers, roots blowers, or ProChargers.<\/p>\n
\u201cScott Tidwell has no shortage of race cars, and we\u2019re gonna run whatever we feel like can run the best at that given time,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cIt will be something supercharged, but there\u2019s three options and I may not run the same one the full year. I know that they have a new rule where you can\u2019t change power adders but so many times. We\u2019ll have to be smart about when and how we do that. But there\u2019s no guarantee you will see me with the same power adder either stuck through the hood or out the nose of that thing for the entire year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joe McHugh photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
While the Barnett-Tidwell partnership originally just included the NHRA Pro Mod season, Barnett will also likely drive one of Tidwell\u2019s cars in outlaw trim in the upcoming races at Bradenton Motorsports Park, including the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals, Nov. 30-Dec. 3, the U.S. Street Nationals, Jan. 25-28, and the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod, March 1-3.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really want to thank Scott. Without him, obviously, none of this is possible,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cScott and I have never worked together like this. We don\u2019t know each other super well, but he knows how competitive I am and how bad I want to win and how much I hate to freaking lose. I just want to thank him for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Barnett will race with support from his Mac Fab Beadlocks business, he\u2019s also looking for partners for his upcoming races.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s super short notice for the outlaw series at Bradenton, but we are looking for partners there,\u201d Barnett said, \u201cand then also looking for some partners for the entire NHRA Pro Modified season, whether it\u2019s single race, multi-race, or for the full year. We are entertaining, obviously, any sponsorship or partners that want to join us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The post Lyle Barnett to Drive for Scott Tidwell Racing in 2024 NHRA Pro Mod Championship Hunt<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated | Drag Racing News, Opinion, Interviews, Photos, Videos and More<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three-time NHRA Pro Mod winner Lyle Barnett is no longer sidelined, he announced Tuesday night during the Shake and Bake Show. Barnett recently signed on with team owner Scott Tidwell to drive one of his Scott Tidwell Racing entries in the 2024 NHRA Pro Mod Series. The deal will also see Barnett compete in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,78117,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-race-pages","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90293","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=90293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91242,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90293\/revisions\/91242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}