JAY COX
The year when it was you, Stevie and Tom-
my Franklin battling it out in Pro Nitrous was
one of the most exciting times in the history of
the class. Do you miss that rivalry?
Oh yeah. All jokes aside, I got a lot of respect
for Stevie. I look up to him a lot. I followed him
racing when I was playing ball. But sometimes
it gets boring when people won’t take jabs back
at you or they don’t want to – I don’t want to
say attack you – but they don’t want to tell you
what they’re gonna try to do. It’s kind of boring.
That’s the thing about Stevie. If he called me
right now and needed something, I’d drop ev-
erything and be there in a heartbeat, and I feel
like he’d do the same thing for me, but we both
want to kill each other on race day. That’s the
way it should be. All the people in the world that
I’ve raced against, there’s probably nobody that
I enjoy racing against more than him. When I
looked over the qualifying sheet when he raced
and I realized I’d have to race him in the semis
or the finals, I knew he ain’t leaving nothing
on the table when he rolls that thing out from
under the awning to take it to the starting line.
Man, that’s what I love. I love me and him being
able to go back and pick at each other, and I love
being able to race against people who have that
kind of passion.
Ultimately, when you get somebody like that,
you kind of feed off of ‘em. And I know people
feed off me. I run my mouth a lot, talk a lot of
junk and people feed off that. When they run me,
they give me their best shot.
COX GREW UP WITH A TIGHT-
KNIT FAMILY, A TRADITION THAT
HE CONTINUES TODAY AS HE
BRINGS HIS WIFE, MEGAN, AND
THEIR TWO YOUNG CHILDREN,
SON LEVI AND DAUGHTER AVERY
(NOT PICTURED) TO AS MANY
RACES AS POSSIBLE.
am and hopefully they’ll enjoy racing.
I was just fortunate enough to find the right
people that just want to be a part of a racing team
and want to go racing. They don’t make it like a
business and they don’t make it stressful. We go
and have a lot of fun. When it’s relaxing and easy
like that, you tend to do better. You win a lot of
races and you do really well.
Mr. Mark Butner and the Butners, Marcus
and Mathew, they are fantastic. I got three good
sponsors – Butner Construction, Smithfield Col-
lision and Lester’s Body Shop – and they all get
along good. They’re really close like a family. It
ain’t something where they send a check and I
never hear from them. Every day, one of the three
of them is calling me, asking me about the car
or the race coming up, asking if I need anything.
It’s not like a business to business, it’s more like
a family-run deal. We talk daily or every other
day or sometimes we talk two or three times a
day. It’s a really good deal.
You’ve really thrived in Pro Nitrous since
you jumped into the class. We’ve seen other
guys make the move over to NHRA Pro Mod or
other classes. Is that something you have your
eye on or are you pretty happy in Pro Nitrous?
Man, I’m really happy in Pro Nitrous. The only
thing I ain’t done in PDRA that I really want
to do is win the championship. But I think I’ve
proven about all that I can prove in PDRA. So
I’m not going to say that I’ll never run NHRA. I
really like what they got going over there. I think
if they could make it a little more competitive for
a nitrous car and I could find the funding, I’d
probably look into maybe running it. If my guys
and my sponsors wanted to go that route, I’d look
into it. I’d have to come up with probably double
the funding I have right now, so I don’t know if
that will ever happen, but if it did happen I’m
not going to say I wouldn’t.
I’d like to go over there and run at the front and
run with some of those guys. I’m not going to say
it’s something I’d do forever because I really enjoy
this outlaw-style, heads-up, nitrous-only racing.
I really enjoy that. I love when you show up at
the race, if you get beat, you can look over there
and say, “Well, that man’s got the same thing I
got. He beat me. He deserved to win.”
But don’t rule out NHRA because I’m going
to tell you something – and you can put this in
quotes too – Stevie Jackson’s over there and there
ain’t nobody else in the world I like to slap around
more than him.
I’m glad you brought that up because Stevie
recently did an interview on the Wes Buck
Show podcast and he specifically mentioned
wanting the chance to race you again.
His actual, exact words were that he wanted to
smack me around. See, what happened was he’s
been over there running with those guys so long
that he forgot who his daddy is.
You’ve had that hard-charging mentality
since you started in Pro Nitrous, but it seems
like it’s only intensified since then. How has
it helped you run at the front of such a rapidly
improving group of racers?
When we’re testing or qualifying, I want to be
the fastest. I know it sounds crazy, but if any one
of those guys don’t say during testing or qualify-
ing they don’t look down there going, “Damn, I
wonder how I can outrun him,” they’re lying to
you. My mindset’s always been to be the fastest.
I go at it 110 percent. Me and Brandon [Switzer]
laugh about it every now and then. Brandon will
look at me in testing, he’s like, “Man, why are you
gonna run this thing that hard right now?” Be-
cause I want everybody to know I’m here and this
is what I’ve got and I brought my baddest horse
to the race today and they need to bring theirs.
I like to run it just as fast as I can run it. If you
run it that fast enough, you’re bound to figure
out how to go faster. I don’t ever back up. That
mindset has helped me because when it comes
to race day, I’ve ran that fast ET that many times
that I’m comfortable with it. When I look down
there and know I gotta run a guy that I got five or
six hundredths on, it takes a little pressure off of
you and allows you to try certain things where you
can run a little faster come nighttime when you
have to run a car that’s kind of evenly matched
with you. I’m a full-tilt, wide-open-with-my-hair-
on-fire kinda guy. I like to go wide open.
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