Cole Thomas
Photography & Article by Cole Thomas.
A couple weekends ago at Galot Motorsports Park in Benson North Carolina, I had the opportunity to do a feature on Jay Cox and his absolutely beautiful RJ Race Cars built 1969 Chevy Camaro aka “The Pumpkin”
With it’s strikingly vibrant orange paint job, it is also equipped with gorgeous Weld Racing Delta-1 rear wheels and V-Series front runners, powered by it’s Massive Pat Musi Racing Engines 959ci Big Block and assisted by 5 stages of Nitrous Oxide, “The Pumpkin” really is a Beautiful hot rod in The PDRA (Professional Drag Racers Association) Pro Nitrous Category.
After our shoot, Jax sat down with Jay to gather some more information about the car. Here I have it listed below, Along with a couple racing related questions we asked him.
Car name: The Pumpkin.
Car builder: Rick Jones.
Year, Make & Model: 1969 Camaro, built in 2021.
Engine: Pat Musi Racing Engines 959ci Big Block.
Power adder: 5 Stages of Nitrous.
Transmission: Ty-Drive and Liberty.
Suspension: 4 Link.
Rear end: 10 inch Ford.
Tires: Hoosier.
Electronics: EFI Technologies.
Fuel: VP Racing Fuel.
Personal best ET & MPH: 3.60 @ 208 mph.
Here are the couple questions we asked Jay & his responses –
Name & Age? Jay Cox, 37 years old.
Home town? Smithfield NC.
How long have you been racing? “20 years.”
How did you get into racing? “My Father use to race a 66 Chevelle and I’ve always been into fast cars, so me and dad got started in bracket racing and it just kinda took off from there.”
What’s your favorite part about going racing? “My Favorite part about going racing is spending time with my guys on my team. We work hard together. We are all a big family ; eating and laughing with the same goals for the race program. Makes for a great time.”
Who are your Sponsors? Sponsors are Butner Construction, Smithfield Collision and Lester’s Body Shop.
“The Blue Collar Boys” A nickname for Jay and his crew as well as a reference to the song “Blue Collar Boys” released by Country Music artist Frank Foster in 2012.
remainder of the full photo gallery is below.
Cole – Special Thanks goes out to Jax Castle-Waddell for sitting down with Jay and going over the Questions on Monday, as we were all very busy over the race weekend and didn’t have time to get it done during the race.
Special Thanks also goes out to:
Angie Thomas.
TJ Pruitt.
Jeff Kline.
Jay Cox & Crew.
Damon Steinke.
