Let me add one more thing: a lot of newbies and novices fantasize about mod being this great class for even average drivers. It's simply not.
Guys, if you have trouble wheeling a stock motor car without crashing, mod will be your worst nightmare: cars break much, much more easily, drivetrains wear out more quickly, motors throw winds and HP really aggravates handling problems.
Back in the early 90s a lot more people were running mod and it was very frustrating. Guys were all over the place and the racing was a mess IMO. Fun is a tricky word--this may have qualified as fun to some, but in a demolition derby kind of way. Running stock for a while before moving up teaches you patience and also consistency of lines--you can't make up time in stock with HP. At large events, every single corner counts.