Taking on the Americans on their home turf in any sort of drag racing event is not for the faint of heart; if there is one thing the Yanks know how to do well, it’s getting a car down a race track. So, when a bunch of Aussie upstarts led by John Ricca take a brand-new Pro Mod Camaro and run 5.37 seconds and 271mph to reset the world record for quickest and fastest blown door car on the planet, it’s kind of a big deal.

First published in the May 2025 issue of Street Machine

And the team didn’t stop there, either. After making the record-breaking run at Florida’s Bradenton Motorsports Park in November 2024, John and his crew – Sydney racer and tuner Paul Mouhayet, Andrew Micallef, Stef Radovanovic, Manny Debrincat, Dougie Pierazzi, Adam Popovic and legendary tuner Steve Petty – backed it up in March this year by making the finals in Radial vs the World at Lights Out 16 in Georgia – one of the biggest radial events in the world. But wait, there’s more! A week later, they qualified 20th in a field of more than 80 of the quickest Pro Mods on the planet at the World Series of Pro Mod event, once again at Bradenton. Gentlemen, take a bow!

John, owner of Race Parts Melbourne, could never have imagined what an insane ride he and his Aussie crew have experienced over the past year or so.

It all began when he got sent some pics of a cutting-edge, screw-blown Pro Mod Camaro that was being built at RK Racecraft in the US for Aussie racer Rob Marjan, along with an invitation to purchase the car. The JBRC Camaro was a few seasons old, but it had been fully modernised and fitted with the latest Pro Line Racing MH7 Hemi, a C-rotor PSI supercharger and a Mark Micke TH400 transmission.

The car was a few weeks off being finished at the time, but John loved it, and over a period of months, a deal was struck. “I was surprised that Rob wanted to sell it,” he recalls. “He had a lot going on with his RB program here at home and a bunch of big cars he was racing, so I can only guess that jetting to the other side of the world to start up on that racing program was going to be too much for him.

“I’d never driven a screw car; I only had experience with ProCharged and twin-turbo combinations. Luckily, Paul Mouhayet had been the middleman, and we couldn’t have done any part of this deal, from start to finish, without him. He fitted in well with our team and was a huge asset.”

John sold his Pro Mod here in Australia and made plans to sort and test the new car with Pro Line Racing in Indianapolis.

“We headed to Indy in August 2024 for four days to get comfortable in the car and fix any small issues,” he says. “We ran eighth-mile all week until the last day, getting the front half of the track ironed out before making our first full pass, stopping the clocks at 5.58 and 263mph.

“It felt good; the blower was really quick early, and the pass was very smooth compared to a turbo deal that turns it on hard from 330ft onwards. I went into this with a goal of 5.50s over the quarter-mile, so to run a 5.58 first hit, I was rapt. We ended up finishing the day with a 5.53@264mph.”

In November, John headed back to the States to Bradenton Motorsports Park to continue getting comfortable in the car and see how it responded to changes.

“We were hoping to run with good air, as Indy was hot, and I was hoping to get into the 5.40s,” John says. The team tested the first few days to the eighth, with a best of 3.55@213mph. Then it was time to put it to the test over the quarter.

“On the last day, we sent it on its first pass; it got to 300 feet and the lock-up converter clicked in and the car went up onto the wheelie bars, so I got out of it. I’d never had anything like that happen before,” John says. “We made some shock adjustments, put some weight on the nose, and it did it again. It ended up going 5.43@269mph – that felt good!

“While we were at the track, someone said we were only a hundredth of a second off the screw-blown world record, which had been set by John Zappia in a Noonan-powered Camaro back in 2017. I really don’t get too excited by anything anymore, but Petty made some adjustments, and the nose stayed down as we knocked out a 5.40@271, making it the quickest and fastest screw-blown door car on the planet!”

Naturally, John was over the moon, and he was ready to call it a day, but Steve and Paul reckoned there was even more in it with a bit of massaging.

“Petty had to grab a flight and said as he was leaving, ‘Enjoy your 5.39!’” John recalls. “So, we sent it, and it knocked out a 5.37@270.75mph!” With that run, the Camaro became both the quickest and the fastest supercharged door car in history, beating the previous record of 5.39 seconds and 269.56mph, both set by Eric Dillard in Jose Gonzalez’s ProCharged Hemi in January 2023.

Triumphant, the boys headed home to enjoy their accomplishments, but before long, the internet warriors teed off with the usual garbage about how easy it is to do, that results in testing don’t mean anything unless you can repeat them in a competition meeting, and that the car would never be anything that special on a radial, compared to the big tyre it was on. That was all the motivation John needed. “We were like, ‘Okay, let’s do it!’” he grins.

With that, the team set their sights on the March 2025 Radial vs the World meeting at Lights Out 16 at South Georgia Motorsport Park, determined to prove the naysayers wrong. “We sent the car to RK Racecraft in Georgia and had them swap the whole car to radials,” John explains. “They scaled the car, got all the weights right, pulled the wheelie bars off, put the radials on, and set the car right on 2650lb, which was the Radial vs The World minimum weight. We could run 128 per cent overdrive on the blower, and the lock-up converter.”

The team at RK clearly knew what they were doing, as come qualifying for Lights Out, the Camaro immediately looked to be a contender, with a first qualifying pass of 3.558@216mph, followed by a 3.518@217mph – which ended up being the fastest speed of the whole event – and finally a 3.494@215mph, which saw them qualify third for round one. Bad-arse!

“We went into the next day, and Petty said, ‘What do you want to do: go for the record or go rounds?’ I said, ‘Let’s go rounds.’” John says.

The team got off to a great start with a first-round victory, posting the quickest time of the round in the process. The second round saw another win, with the Camaro the quickest of the round yet again, and after a couple more rounds, the team found themselves in the final against Ken Quartuccio in his Camaro!

“The crowd was cheering for the Aussies; it was awesome,” John recalls. “We were really pumped to be in the final of one of the toughest radial events in the world. We left together and there was nothing in it at the finish line, with Quartuccio winning with a 3.498 to our 3.507 – just a few thousandths of a second difference!”

Runner-up at Lights Out after only a dozen laps to get a handle on a new car is a legendary effort. But for John and his team, the ride was not over yet – they had a date with destiny set for barely a week later: the World Series of Pro Mod at Bradenton Motorsports Park.

“Before we left the track to head to the World Series, we started converting the car back to big-tyre, and then set off on the four-hour drive to Bradenton,” John says.

The team arrived in Florida to 30-degree heat – a welcome change after enduring freezing conditions in Georgia. But when they got to the track, they were greeted by torrential rain. Luckily, Ken Quartuccio had his trailer set up with an awning, so the boys rolled the car out there and started overhauling it to meet World Series rules.

The car was essentially stripped to a shell with wiring, as the crew had a laundry list of things to change on the car. Lights Out allows for 128 per cent overdrive on the blower, while the World Series rules specify a maximum of 75 per cent, so the blower overdrive, rods, pistons and head gaskets were switched out for a higher compression/lower boost configuration. The transmission was given a ratio change and a non-lock-up converter, the shock travel limiters were removed, and the diff centre and rear gears were swapped, along with the tyres, shocks and wheelie bars.

“There were seven of us working on the car, and at times the water was ankle deep and running in sheets under the car as we lay under it putting it back together,” recalls John.

The World Series was an invite-only event, with around 80 Pro Mods qualifying for a 32-car field. The track was incredibly sticky – almost a radial prep – so if you didn’t have your set-up just right, the cars would shake hard.

“We were in the 32-car field right up to qualifier five; all we wanted to do was qualify, because we knew we could go rounds,” John says. “I was so stressed; we were here with the best in the world. Guys like [four-time Top Fuel champion] Antron Brown, Robin Roberts and Murder Nova [Shawn Ellington] didn’t qualify – the standard of competition was next-level.” But the team got it down the track, qualifying in 20th spot – a great outcome in a field of 80-odd cars.

John remembers exactly how it felt: “As we were waiting for the first round, Petty, who is a man of few words and compliments, said to me, ‘If you qualify, you’ve won. To run a 5.37 in Outlaw trim, then a 3.49 in Radial vs the World trim, come runner-up, and then turn the car around, convert it to World Series rules and qualify, is just phenomenal.’ We ended up pairing for the first round with the track owner, Victor Alvarez in his twin-turbo Camaro, which had been 3.61 at 220.”

In the first elimination round, Ricca nailed Alvarez on the tree, moving on to the second round to find himself squaring off against his buddy Ken Quartuccio.

Ken had just locked up the three-round winter series and had won almost every event for the past 18 months, so it was a tall order for John. Both cars were tuned by Petty, who’d given them a 3.61 tune-up, which he felt was the best the track could handle. He was right on the money, with Ken posting a 3.616 to just pip John for the with a 3.667, after the Aussies bumped up the launch and the car shook a little.

What a way to go – finishing in the top 16 cars at an event where the top 32 were separated by five hundredths of a second!

Understandably, the boys were toast by the last day, and what had been a fairytale ride had sadly come to an end. Despite getting great help from Pro Line Racing and Steve Petty, the Aussies had done the bulk of the heavy lifting themselves, which proves that surrounding yourself with the best people is the key to getting the best outcome, and John is thankful to all who have contributed to this amazing journey.

The car will arrive in Australia in the next few months, and we can’t wait to see how it performs on Aussie soil!