Drag Illustrated Issue 140, January 2019 | Page 97
THE
CHAMPIONS
CHAMPIONS
ISSUE
By Nate
Van Wagnen
Ja n u a r y 2 0 1 9
SHAWN AYERS / NMCA Street Outlaw
S
hawn Ayers and the Fletcher
Cox Racing team entered the 2018
NMCA season with a true cham-
pionship mentality. Cox had just
tasted victory on one of the grand-
est stages in sports as he won Super
Bowl LII as a defensive tackle for the Philadel-
phia Eagles. Even with the fame and fortune
that come with such a momentous champion-
ship, Cox had something more on his mind.
“I set a goal last year and I told the boys I
want to run NMCA and I want to run for a
championship,” Cox said in his championship
speech at the NMCA banquet. “I want to race
a class, feel like a champion and be proud of
that. We did that.”
With a new ProCharger-boosted DiSomma
Racing Engines 470ci bullet in Cox’s “Gold
Dust” Mustang, Ayers raced to victory at the
season-opener, defeating Daniel Pharris to
claim the Muscle Car Madness trophy. Anoth-
er victory followed at the All-Star Nationals
in Atlanta, then a runner-up to Pharris at the
Bluegrass Nationals at Bowling Green. Ayers
added a second victory at the Super Bowl of
Street Legal Drag Racing near Chicago and a
second runner-up at the World Street Finals
in Indianapolis.
Cox went on to explain how winning an
NMCA championship was meaningful on
many levels. For one, he was able to honor his
late older brother, Shaddrick “Trell” Cox, who
fostered his love for drag racing at an early age.
“The biggest thing for me with winning this
championship was winning it for my broth-
er,” Cox said. “Anybody who knows my history
knows this was my brother’s original car. It was
a small-block LS car. My brother is no longer
here, he died in 2015. The only thing he wanted
was to see this car win and see it in the win-
ner’s circle. To do what we did this year was
really special.”
Cox’s appearance at the NMCA champion-
ship awards banquet in Indianapolis during the
PRI Show weekend was somewhat of a surprise,
given the NFL late-season schedule. But his
presence spoke to the significance of the title for
Cox, who was in Dallas taking on the Cowboys
two days later.
“My time is very limited and I don’t get to
race a lot,” Cox said. “I’m not even supposed to
be here tonight, but I took a plane and came
here because this is special. I’m competitive
and I’m a family guy. Outside of my family and
my football family, I have this big drag racing
family that always makes me smile. It means
the world to me that guys like Shawn have my
back and are always there for me.”
DragIllustrated.com
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