Terry Leggett Challenges the Young Blood  One of the originals of Pro Mod has still got it

PITTSBORO, N.C. (August 31, 2015): “The first car I ever had was one just like it- a ‘71 Mustang, red and black. It looked identical, other than it wasn’t fast,” he laughed. “I always thought they made really good race cars, and judging by how good this one has done, I’d say that was right.”

Terry Leggett’s gorgeous 1971 Pro Extreme Mustang has certainly proven to be just as impressive on the track as off. Leggett went all the way to the final round of the recent PDRA Memphis Drags where he lost an extremely close, side-by-side race against points leader Jason Scruggs.

“I just like to be different,” Leggett added in his recognizable southern drawl. “I like to have something different from the rest of the crowd, and it’s definitely that. Ain’t anybody got one.

“The car is just really, really good. The car is one of the biggest reasons we’ve done well this year. Several people asked me the last race or two where we picked up or what we found. Really we’ve been fast ever since we’ve had this car. A lot of our losses can be contributed to my fault. If I could have done a little bit better job of driving I think we could have been a lot more rounds than we’ve been. Our worst qualifying position all year was sixth. We’ve run in the fifties every race this year. It’s really been good. We just haven’t made a lot of rounds until Memphis.”
 

Leggett had been running 50s all weekend at Memphis, qualifying on top of the field with a 3.546. After defeating Neal Wantye, Brandon Pesz and Wesley Jones, it was apparent the ‘71 Mustang was the car to beat, but no one expected what Jason Scruggs was about to do. His stout 3.573 elapsed time in the final round was paired with an incredible .004 reaction time. Leggett posted the quickest lap of the weekend with a 3.542 and had a respectable .040 reaction time. Unfortunately for Leggett, this still put Scruggs crossing the stripe first with five thousandths margin of victory.

Although disappointed with the final round outcome, Leggett still held that “it was a very, very good weekend. We had a really good time, which is more important than anything, but doing good makes you have more fun. It goes hand in hand, I guess. The car did really well. We’ve got good equipment and crew. Terry does an astounding job tuning the car. Even more than being a really awesome tuner, he and his fiancee, Kim, are just great people and I love to be around them. Todd Magee is a young gentleman that’s helped me now, I don’t even know how many years, a long time. Jeff Smith has helped me race off and on for 30 years. We’ve got some good people with us. Family members, too. My wife goes. She loves to cook. I think she would rather stay home and cook, but when she goes with us she cooks and does her thing, and we all appreciate that.

“Flying A has helped us now for a good many years. Charlie Buck’s doing my motors now. I wish I had a bunch of sponsors to list off t, but I ain’t got ‘em. The biggest help I’ve got is the good crew people that help us every weekend.”

Leggett has been a fixture in Pro Mod racing since the early days when it was spawning from Top Sportsman. He’s one of the few original forces behind the class that’s still competing and challenging the young blood of the sport.

“I never really expected Pro Mod to be where it’s at now,” he confessed. “It’s just like everything else, though. You buy a car off the showroom floor and they’re a whole lot faster than the old muscle cars were in their day. Everything evolves into getting faster, quicker and more efficient.

“My parents were very much against the drag racing deal. As soon as I got out of high school, and got married, I just started messing with cars. It wasn’t many years after that I got my first bracket car. The old ‘56 model Thunderbird was really what you might call the first ‘real’ race car I ever had, a tube chassis type. It’s cool looking back and finding pictures of that old car now. It was fast at the time. We ran against Tommy Mauney, Ed Hoover, Scotty Cannon. A lot of times we’d run two and three races a weekend. One Friday night, one Saturday and one Sunday, if we were lucky.”

Long gone are Leggett’s days of running three races in one weekend. These days he has a hard time pulling away from work enough to follow the 10 race PDRA schedule. While his logging business has been the fuel behind his operation, it’s also been his reason for pulling away from time to time.

“Seems like it’s a little harder than it used to be, work wise. I need to be on the job more than ever seems like. So chasing races all over the country gets to be pretty hard. Time away from work can be a big issue. I’ve taken two and three years off at a time if business wasn’t really good or I just felt like I needed a break, but I always come back to it.

I ran Pro Stock for a few years and really enjoyed that,” continued the North Carolina native. “I always thought that was what I would really like to do, but I quit for a few years and when I came back I decided to come back to where I started.”

Going back to his roots has proven to be a good move for Leggett, as his performance at the Memphis Drags attests. Besides, he still has some unfinished business to take care of.

“We’re really, really going to try to focus on a win or two. We’ve still got three chances to get a win this season. Me personally, I’ve never won one of these type races, a big race. I’ve done it a lot of years and never had a big win. It sure looks like it would be possible, so we’re going to try to make it happen.”
 

ABOUT THE PDRA
Based in Pittsboro, North Carolina, the Professional Drag Racers Association is the top sanctioning body in the United States for the sport of eighth-mile drag racing. The PDRA’s professional categories include Pro Extreme, Pro Nitrous, Pro Boost, and Pro Extreme Motorcycle along with Top Sportsman, Top Dragster, Pro Jr. Dragster, and Top Jr. Dragster. The 2015 PDRA schedule consists of ten national events. For more on the world’s premier eighth mile drag racing organization visit www.pdra660.com.
Follow the PDRA: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.

Photo: Gary Rowe / PDRA660.com / RaceWorks.com



PRESS CONTACT: Lisa Collier
Professional Drag Racers Association
lisa@pdra660.com