{"id":99126,"date":"2025-02-25T16:18:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T16:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/with-funny-car-license-complete-spencer-hyde-focuses-on-another-wsopm-win\/"},"modified":"2025-02-25T16:18:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T16:18:22","slug":"with-funny-car-license-complete-spencer-hyde-focuses-on-another-wsopm-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/with-funny-car-license-complete-spencer-hyde-focuses-on-another-wsopm-win\/","title":{"rendered":"With Funny Car License Complete, Spencer Hyde Focuses on Another WSOPM Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spencer Hyde entered the 2023 Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod as a relative unknown on the national Pro Modified scene. He had success in his native Canada, but his 2023 victory over Kurt Steding in the $100,000 final round put him on an international pedestal. He\u2019s since continued to prove his driving prowess by picking up a PDRA Pro Boost win in one of the class\u2019s toughest fields, and he\u2019s climbed the ranks by competing in NHRA Top Fuel with the license he earned just days before his WSOPM win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This weekend, Hyde is back at Bradenton to compete in the sixth running of the WSOPM, which will pay $150,000 to the winner, and he has another nitro license in hand. He recently completed his license crossover in Jim Head\u2019s Funny Car in preparation for a full season in the NHRA Mission Foods Series driving for the Columbus, Ohio-based contractor. The Gainesville preseason test session was Hyde\u2019s first time driving a Funny Car, and it was an eye-opening experience even for someone with his experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t even know how to explain it,\u201d Hyde said. \u201cIt\u2019s totally different than anything else I\u2019ve ever drove. It\u2019s nothing like the Pro Mod and it\u2019s nothing like the Top Fuel dragster, which I was expecting it to be a hybrid of the two. And it\u2019s nothing like either of them. This thing is a violent animal. There\u2019s nothing else to describe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cold conditions prevented the veteran Head Racing team from making full pulls to the 1,000-foot finish line under power, but Hyde got to experience tire shake and all the things that come with a less-than-perfect run. He still ran into the 3-second range on passes with early numbers that suggested they would\u2019ve been in the high 3.80s if under power through the stripe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the clean runs, it feels similar to the dragster,\u201d Hyde said. \u201cIt\u2019s the same acceleration, same lock-up feeling, but the engine is in front of you, you\u2019re sitting right on top of the tires, and you feel everything. Even on the runs where it made it down, it felt like it shouldn\u2019t [make it down]. You feel everything. It\u2019s pretty wild. It was not really at all what I was expecting. I\u2019m not saying that\u2019s good or bad, it\u2019s just its own beast.\u201d<\/p>\n

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One of the biggest announcements of the 2024 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) Show came on Friday afternoon when it was announced that Hyde would make his Funny Car debut this season driving for Head. Casual fans might\u2019ve been surprised, but anyone who pays close attention to all levels of the sport realized Hyde has been preparing for this opportunity for years. Now, he\u2019s getting the chance to prove he has what it takes to compete on the sport\u2019s highest level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never even sat in Funny Car, so I\u2019m sure there were a lot of people sitting back like, \u2018Why him?\u2019 and \u2018He\u2019s never done it,\u2019 and whatnot,\u201d Hyde admitted. \u201cIt was nice to be able to get in the car and go make some runs and show everybody that I can do it. I\u2019m very excited for Gainesville.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next week or so, though, Hyde is still Spencer Hyde the Pro Mod driver. Spencer Hyde the World Series of Pro Mod champion. It\u2019s a title he wears proudly, especially this week as he attempts to become the first repeat winner in what will be his last Pro Mod race until possibly the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals at Bradenton in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got to put [the Funny Car deal] on the shelf for another week, and I\u2019ve got high expectations rolling in the World Series,\u201d said Hyde, driver of the screw-blown \u201cJack & The Green Stock\u201d \u201969 Camaro. \u201cI\u2019m looking to run a good race down there. Obviously, we\u2019ve won that one before and I would love to be the first two-time winner of that event. We\u2019ve got a good car and Mark [Savage] is very capable of putting it in the winner\u2019s circle. That\u2019s my focus here for the next five or six days, then it\u2019ll switch right back to the Funny Car.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The WSOPM \u2013 and the inaugural Drag Illustrated Winter Series that wraps up with WSOPM this week \u2013 has reached an unprecedented level of competition. It\u2019s grown and evolved in just the two years since Hyde won the first Bradenton iteration of the event in 2023. What started at Bandimere Speedway outside Denver in 2017 billed as \u201cthe biggest, richest Pro Mod race in the history of the known universe\u201d can now claim that title without dispute. More than 80 drivers from the U.S., Canada, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia will attempt to qualify for the 32-car field this weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing against the World Series prior to Bradenton, but I think moving that deal to Bradenton, taking a few years off and starting with a clean canvas, that race really catapulted the Outlaw Pro Mod scene,\u201d Hyde said. \u201cThat\u2019s sprung into a three-race series. I don\u2019t really see any negatives to it. I think it\u2019s all positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really good for our sport and it\u2019s really good for that class,\u201d Hyde continued. \u201cYou\u2019re not getting 84 fuel cars at any event, ever. You\u2019re not getting 84 Pro Stock cars. You\u2019re not getting 84 with really anything other than sportsman racing. So, I think it proves that Pro Mod\u2019s as strong as it\u2019s ever been and it\u2019s got the diversity. It\u2019s got competitors from all kinds of different countries, not just North America. You\u2019ve got people from Australia and Sweden and Puerto Rico and Bahrain and Qatar. They\u2019re all there. They all love Pro Mod. I think that this only helps that, and I hope it can stick around and keep going because it\u2019s good for the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Even though that all means more competition standing in Hyde\u2019s way, he\u2019s all for it. He knows from experience that a quick car and a quick-reacting driver aren\u2019t the only elements it takes to win here. It also takes some WSOPM magic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to go there and qualify and win the race,\u201d Hyde said, \u201cbut it\u2019s so tight and the competition\u2019s so stiff that you\u2019ve just got to hope that a few bounces go your way and you get a couple of lucky rounds and you get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published on February 25, 2025. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post With Funny Car License Complete, Spencer Hyde Focuses on Another WSOPM Win<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spencer Hyde entered the 2023 Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod as a relative unknown on the national Pro Modified scene. He had success in his native Canada, but his 2023 victory over Kurt Steding in the $100,000 final round put him on an international pedestal. He\u2019s since continued to prove his driving prowess […]<\/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-99126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99126","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=99126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}