TJ Pruitt
ByNate Van Wagnen
Just over a year ago, PDRA Pro Nitrous star driver and tuner Jay Cox announced his retirement from driving at the end of the 2023 season. But this winter, Cox will make his return in a cameo appearance to compete in the inaugural Drag Illustrated Winter Series presented by J&A Service, a three-race outlaw Pro Modified series at Bradenton Motorsports Park. Starting at next week’s Snowbird Outlaw Nationals at Motion Raceworks, Cox will drive his fan-favorite “Pumpkin” ’69 Camaro, though the car now sports a twin-turbocharged powerplant between the frame rails.
Cox stepped away from full-time driving to spend more time with his young family, though he remained involved in the sport tuning for teammate and sponsor Marcus Butner, who competes in PDRA Pro Nitrous. Cox is adamant that he’s still retired, but when his father and crew chief, Lloyd Cox, started to miss the father-son duo’s racing activities, Cox decided to postpone the sale of his RJ Race Cars-built ’69 Camaro. The inaugural DI Winter Series – featuring the Snowbirds, the U.S. Street Nationals presented by M&M Transmission in late January, and the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod in early March – gives Cox the opportunity to race a limited schedule that doesn’t interfere with his son’s baseball season.
“It’s not that I’m coming back out. I am retired,” Cox insisted. “I did everything I wanted to do, and I’ve done it for 15 years. My little boy was getting into baseball, and man, I’ve had the time of my life with this baseball team and coaching baseball. I found my love for baseball again. I’ve never really done anything in my life that I’ve enjoyed as much as spending time with these kids. But when I sold my racing stuff, it kind of crushed my dad. It broke his heart. My dad has been my best friend since the day I was born.
Jay and Lloyd Cox
“My main purpose for coming back is my dad,” Cox continued. “You never know how much time you’ve got left. He’s 76 years old and however much time I’ve got left, if that’s where he wants to be is on a racetrack, that’s where I want to be with him. We’ll probably only run two or three races a year, maybe four at the most. It’s strictly going to be with Wes [Buck’s] deal down there in Florida. I might go to PDRA at GALOT, but that’s it. It’s wherever my dad wants to race, and as long as it doesn’t interfere with the baseball stuff with these young kids, that’s what I’m going to do.”
The wheels started turning for Cox at the 2024 World Series of Pro Mod, where he got to talking with M&M Transmission’s Mark Micke, who qualified No. 1 out of 65 cars in his twin-turbocharged ’69 Camaro. Roger Conley from Hart’s Turbos joined the conversation, and Cox started making plans to convert his nitrous-fed “Pumpkin” over to a Hart’s turbocharged, Pro Line Racing-powered combination.
“My dad flew out to the World Series there towards the end, and we were all just sitting there talking and I could see my dad’s eyes lighting up. My dad was getting excited about it,” Cox said. “I told Mark, I said, ‘Let me call Rick,’ and I called Rick Jones. We talked a little bit about it and Rick said he’d help me out. A lot of people came together in the right places to make the deal go together. When I left the World Series of Pro Mod, we took the car up to Rick’s and just took some baby steps and started converting the car over. I didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal at first, but man, Rick took the whole car down to basically the bare chassis, and basically built a whole new chassis and started over with it. It’s a pretty nice piece.”
The move from turbos will be a significant adjustment for Cox, who has exclusively driven nitrous cars over the course of his career, from his early days at small-town tracks in the Carolinas to his 10 wins in PDRA Pro Nitrous competition.
“As far as the turbos, man, I’m a duck out of water when it comes to that deal,” Cox said. “I’m a nitrous guy. You give me a nitrous car and at three runs, I’ll go out there and run with anybody in the world. With a turbo car, man, I don’t know. I’m just hoping I can stage the thing.”
From a tuning standpoint, Cox will focus on chassis setup while Micke handles the power management on the Pro Line Racing engine.
“I don’t want to put all the pressure on him, but it’s a hundred percent Mark Micke’s deal,” Cox added. “I’ll do the shocks, 4-link, stuff like that, the car stuff. But as far as the turbo deal, it’s a hundred percent his deal.”
The inaugural Winter Series came around at just the right time for Cox, who still wants to compete at a high level but has too many commitments at home to run a full touring series. Beyond the Snowbirds on Dec. 5-8, the Winter Series will include the U.S. Street Nationals presented by M&M Transmission on Jan. 23-26, 2025; and the World Series of Pro Mod Feb. 27-March 1, 2025.
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“It is the coolest racing deal out there right now,” Cox said. “I love the PDRA. I’m diehard, through-and-through PDRA, but man, eight races stretched out over seven months, and all these different places you’ve got to go, that’s a lot on people, especially a younger working person that’s got a family. I think it’s a very cool deal what they’ve done – three races basically in a two-month period, all in the same location in the wintertime, when there’s really nothing else to do. I think it’s a very, very good deal. I think it’s going to be the next hottest thing in drag racing. I think it’s going to bring out a lot of new people, and I’m very excited about it. If Wes [Buck] and Victor [Alvarez, track owner] hadn’t done this, I probably wouldn’t have been as excited or as gung-ho about putting the car together.”
Cox, who will continue to tune Butner’s Musi-powered “Heartbreaker” ‘69 Camaro, admits he didn’t plan or expect to bring a car back out so soon after his retirement from full-time driving. But everything came together, and working in secret for the last several months with several manufacturers, Cox prepared for the biggest three-race stretch of his career.
“I’ve had a lot of people ask me about racing, if I was coming back, and I’ve told them I’ve enjoyed being retired, and I am retired,” Cox said. “And I didn’t lie to nobody, but I just wanted it to be a secret. It took a lot of special people. Ultimately, Mark Micke, number one. Without him, and believing in him and knowing he’s going to help me, I wouldn’t even have ventured it.
“Number two, Marcus Butner and Matthew Butner have been with me for five or six years with the nitrous car,” continued Cox, who also thanked Hart’s Turbos, Eric Dillard at Pro Line Racing, and Blake Houseley at Mayberry Motorsports. “I guess they saw me, the way I was, and my dad, and [Butner] put his arm around me and he’s like, ‘Bubba, whatever you want to do, I got your back.’ He said, ‘Don’t be scared to pull the trigger on something.’ Without those people in my corner, and a hundred percent believing in them and knowing them, and being as friends as long as we have, and trusting in them, I’d have never done it.”
Each race of the DI Winter Series will feature a 32-car qualified field. The driver who earns the most points across all three races will be crowned the DI Winter Series champion. Across three races and the championship, the Winter Series will pay out more than $300,000. For more info and to purchase tickets, visit www.TheWinterSeries.com or www.RaceBMP.com.
