JAY COX
“The Pumpkin” at the PDRA
season-opener in Tulsa.
Cox’s wild ride during
eliminations at the PDRA
North-South Shootout.
thing about being the underdog and coming out
on top. I don’t really look at the points. I still look
at it as I’m the underdog. Tommy Franklin, Stevie
Jackson, Travis Harvey, they run on probably
three times the amount of money I race on in a
year. I probably have the smallest budget in Pro
Nitrous. Every time I show up at the race track,
I feel like the underdog. So I don’t look at it as
first place or last place. I look at it as those guys
have an edge on me every time I get there and
I just have to work a little harder than they do.
That being said, it’s always nice to have a points
lead, but I don’t want to let it make anybody not
want to work as hard or push these cars or these
motors to the limit.
It’s fairly well known that you played pro-
fessional baseball prior to getting into drag
racing. Do you ever wish you had pursued a
career in baseball a little longer?
From a money standpoint, yeah! It’d been nice
to play the big leagues ten or fifteen years and
make a lot of money. It would have made it a lot
easier doing what I do in racing at this level. But,
nah, ya know, when baseball was over for me, it
was over. I was happy I’d played ever since I was
five years old. I got to do a lot of things, meet a
lot of people, and baseball took me everywhere
I wanted it to in life. It’s kinda cool that drag
racing has took me to a whole different level. I’ve
got to meet a lot of new people and do a lot of
things I never thought I’d be able to do. I don’t
regret nothing.
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90 | D r a g
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
Issue 112
PHOTOS: JOE MCHUGH, ROGER RICHARDS
How quickly did the car come back together?
Actually, I was on the race track still when Rick
[Jones] called me and asked me how bad it was,
trying to get parts ordered while I was still on
the race track. He had JJ, the main guy at the
shop, meet me the very next day. Six o’clock in
the morning we rolled the car out and by dinner
time we had it on the jig, had it cut apart. Within
five days they had it fixed. That speaks volumes
for them. Shoot, I couldn’t even come close to
doing it without them.
That’s great! So, What happened on
that run?
“Maryland had redone the race track. They cut
it out at about 270 foot all the way to the finish
line and they redid the asphalt. There was a transition out there and I was struggling a little bit
with it, as everybody else was. I tried to speed
the car up a little bit before the transition. When
I went across the transition the lockup hit and
kinda took the tire off and it just went loose in
the middle of the race track.”
What was going through your mind?
What was going through my mind was, ‘Oh
shit! How fast can we get this thing put back
together?’ As soon as it come to a stop I jumped
out of it and was looking at everything, just trying
to assess the damage. What could we do to fix it?
Would we have to get another car? I really want
to win the championship and do all I can to win
it, and I know all the guys on my team do and
Bryant and my dad. We only got three weeks
[before the next event]. Three weeks sounds like
a long time, but when you’re working on one of
these things three weeks ain’t nothing, ya know?
I wasn’t worried about me or nothing. All I was
worried about was the car and how bad was it,
how fast we could get it fixed. Rick and the boys
at his shop really done a killer job.
After Maryland, you’re still sitting on top
of Pro Nitrous points. How confident are you
about the rest of the season?
I feel good, ya know? I feel like Lizzy’s got
a little bit of advantage on everybody, from a
driver’s standpoint. Tommy’s a big threat. Stevie
Jackson’s a big threat and Travis is a big threat.
It’s going to be a dog fight from here on out, these
next four races on who can persevere and just
keep their nose down, keep working hard. I feel
good about it. I surround myself with probably
the best people in drag racing. I got Dennis and
Doug and Bryant and my dad. They’re all in it
to win it. They’re not scared to work. They’re
not scared of late nights and long hours and I
think that’s what it’s going to take from here on
out. Those four that I mentioned are really close
on E.T. and it’s all going to be who don’t mind
working the hardest to find that little bit of an
edge. I got Charlie Buck. Every week he’s working
on something, trying to find power. When I got
that many good people around me, it makes me
feel confident about the rest of the year.
Are you comfortable with a lead and trying
to stay ahead of the competition?
Me growing up playing baseball like I have, I
always liked to be the underdog. There’s some-