East Coast Drag Times Hall of Fame Inaugural Inductee And
Drag Racing Legend Ronnie Sox Passes Away At Age 67

By Jim Hill

Ronnie Sox, a member of the inaugural 2002 East Coast Drag Times Hall of Fame and a drag racing legend, passed away Saturday, April 22 at his home in Virginia.  Over the years, Sox thrilled hundreds of thousands of drag racing fans with his razor sharp starting line reactions and flawless shifting of a four-speed, manual transmission.  He finally lost a valiant battle with prostrate cancer at the age of 67.  His wife Diane, friends and family members were close-by when the final run came for the soft spoken driver whose career spanned some 40 years and took him from coast to coast.  

Ronnie Sox’s drag racing career earned him numerous major wins and several championships including NHRA and IHRA World Championships and the “AHRA Driver of the Year” in 1968.  In 2001 NHRA celebrated its 50^th Anniversary by asking a select group of drag racing journalists and historians to name their choices as the all-time “Top 50 Drivers” to compete in NHRA.  Not surprisingly, Ronnie Sox was named No. 15 in the “Top 50 Drivers” poll, and many argued that his position on that elite list should have been even higher.

Sox was also chosen in 1971, along with a select number of auto racing champions, to meet with then President Richard M. Nixon at the White House.  Nixon asked Sox about driving high powered drag racing cars, and Sox spent several minutes explaining what professional level drag racing was all about.

Although known primarily as an expert driver, Sox had an impressive technical background, building and tuning his own cars before teaming up with long-time partner Buddy Martin in 1963.  Sox displayed his considerable knowledge of the “total package” of racing skills in a 1974 book, “The Sox & Martin Book of Drag Racing”. 

Like many other successful professional drag racers, Ronnie Sox’s initial involvement with drag racing began as a teenager, driving his dad’s car in “unsanctioned” street racing.  He quickly saw that his destiny lay not on the street, but at the track.  Sox soon moved to the safer confines of local drag strips.  By 1961 he had gained a strong area reputation for building, tuning and driving hot 409 Chevys in and around Burlington, North Carolina.  His family owned “Sox Sinclair Service”, a gas station and garage, began offering Sox’s racing skills to a growing number of customers.  He was running a 1962 Chevy Bel-Air “Bubble Top” 409 when he became friendly with another area racer, Buddy Martin.  Martin had run against Sox often, and knew him to be an excellent driver and racer.  Martin was about to order one of the new ’63 Chevy Impala, 427 “Z-11” option, lightweight aluminum front-end sedans and suggested that he and Sox team up as partners in the soon to arrive Chevy.  That created one of the single most successful partnerships in drag racing history and forged a Sox & Martin legend that would cover  the next four decades. 

Sox & Martin’s ’63 Chevy was reasonably successful in the region, especially in match races.  When GM ordered its divisions to abandon all forms of racing, Ronnie and Buddy went looking for a faster, quicker alternative.  Their search for factory “help” managed to secure the assistance of L-M Division for one of its brand new, 1964, 427 lightweight Comets.  Running the Comet in A/Factory Experimental, they ran open competition and match races, compiling a strong win-loss record.  Those same Mercury officials commanded Sox & Martin to “Go West, Young Men”, and they entered their A/FX Comet at the 1964 NHRA Winternationals, in Pomona, California.

The initial impression made by the team on unfamiliar grounds was unimpressive.  Sox was late leaving the starting line, losing the A/FX class trophy.  Embarrassed, Sox stormed back in Sunday’s final eliminations, winning round after round of Top Stock Eliminator, finally taking the overall win. 

They finished the year with several more impressive major event wins and were looking forward to a more favorable agreement with Mercury that would deliver a new ’65 427 Comet for the 1965 season.  A contract dispute with Mercury ensued, forcing Sox & Martin to abandon their plans to run for Mercury in ‘65. 

But Mercury wasn’t the only factory eyeing the promising Southerners.  Chrysler had its own ideas about strapping Ronnie Sox into a 426 Hemi powered Plymouth.  Sox & Martin joined Chrysler’s Plymouth Division and took delivery of a new 1965 Plymouth Belvedere 426 Hemi, four-speed sedan.

The red, white and blue Sox & Martin colors adorned the ’65 legal Super Stocker, but the altered wheelbase, ’65 Plymouth “A/FX” was easily the most popular with fans.  Sox & Martin ran this gutted, lightweight, steel bodied, homebuilt “Funny Car” in AHRA major races and match races on countless outlaw drag strips.  Most of these tracks were marginally equipped to handle the nine second, 140+ mph capabilities of Sox and his competition.  Any concerns about safety were cast aside in lieu of “the show”.  These races harkened back to the days when local drivers pitted their cars and driving skills against “The Revenuers”, and it was common to find the fans passing a paper bag covered Mason jar among the lines of cars parked next to the paved strip.  These usually rural track match races attracted thousands of spectators, each with cash in fist and a thirst for watching their heroes run round after round in theatrically staged match races.  Sox wowed them with low gear, wheels-up burn-through’s on powdered rosin, the Hemi belching clouds of alcohol laced with nitromethane fumes.  It was at these local tracks that the legend of “Mr. Four-Speed” sprouted.

The “outlaw car” ’65 had been built on the basic steel Belvedere body.  Plymouth provided a “body in white” ’66 Barracuda and the Sox & Martin team proceeded to build an all-new, lightweight outlaw to keep up with the rapidly escalating Funny Car “arms race”.  The Barracuda had an altered wheelbase, to park more weight over the rear driving wheels, and a complete steel tube roll cage.  It was “state of the art”, and sported a powerful Jake King 426 Hemi engine.  Rather than a cross-ram A-990 style manifold and Holley carburetors, a Hilborn fuel injector with long ram tubes added to the power curve and outlaw image.  Unfortunately, the extreme shock loading of the powerful, fuel burning Hemi and a manual clutch and four-speed caused drivetrain parts to fail without warning.  Reliability suffered and the team was forced to abandon the four-speed for a more reliable, softer Torqueflite automatic.  Sox missed the four-speed, but the auto transmission eliminated the Hemi’s appetite for axles, ring and pinions and four-speeds. 

Even though the AWB ’66 Barracuda was successful, the arrival of the new Logghe tube chassied, Mercury and Ford’s flip-top fiberglass Funny Cars and 427 SOHC V-8 engines put S&M’s Barracuda severely behind the technology curve.  Sox & Martin continued on until 1967 when Chrysler unplugged both Plymouth and Dodge Division’s Funny Car programs.

Instead, 1967 Sox found himself wheeling an 11 second, four-speed, full bodied race car.  Chrysler’s innovative marketing staff soon created the immensely popular Plymouth and Dodge Performance Clinics.  Sox & Martin represented Plymouth Division and Dick Landy was the Dodge Division standard bearer.

The clinics lured new customers into Plymouth and Dodge dealerships while teaching drag racing to all levels of pupil.  The clinics taught engines, tuning, chassis prep and driving.  Dealers loved the clinics as much as the fans, and sold thousands of cars following visits from S&M or Landy’s mobile hot rod workshops.  The clinics also grew the awareness of drag racing and even helped to increase attendance at local tracks. 

The Sox and Martin race team displayed a professionalism unknown to previous drag racing operations.  They had colorful, immaculate uniforms, professionally prepared hand-out literature and they fielded questions with expert confidence and clarity. They not only sold new Chrysler vehicles, they influenced countless numbers of vehicle buyers to a lifetime brand preference for Chrysler vehicles and Mopar® Performance parts.

In spite of their on-track drag racing success, Chrysler wanted more.  The company aimed its considerable engineering effort at creating a vehicle that would showcase the already renowned 426 Hemi engine and dominate drag racing for years to come.  That led to the fastest, quickest, most powerful American production vehicles ever built, the 1968 Plymouth 426 Hemi Barracudas and Dodge Darts.  Hurst Corporation was contracted to build these cars on an assembly line in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, Michigan.  They became instant legends at national and regional events as well as local drag strips across the US and Canada.  Today an original Hurst-built, 426 Hemi Barracuda or Dodge Dart brings easy six-figure prices from collectors anxious to own a piece of automotive history.

Ronnie Sox’s ‘68 Hemi Barracuda, capably shoed by Ronnie Sox, won immediately, and along with the Barracuda the team often brought many other vehicles for display at their clinic appearances.  Among these were Hemi and 440 Wedge powered GTX’s and even a Hemi powered Plymouth Super Bird, with the NASCAR style, superspeedway inspired tall rear wing. 

Running either manual four-speed or automatic transmissions, the ’68 Hemi Barracudas excelled in NHRA Super Stock Eliminator and was also very competitive in “Heads Up” match racing.  The racers were quick to voice their dislike of “handicap” racing and even quicker to extol the virtues of preferred “heads-up” starts and basic “run whatcha brung” rules.  Not surprisingly, Heads Up racing was a reflection of the earlier “Match Race Mania” so loved by tracks, fans and racers.

This popularity forced NHRA and AHRA to offer heads-up racing beginning with both association’s 1970 winter meets.  NHRA called their brand “Pro-Stock”, while AHRA tabbed theirs “Super-Stock”.  The rules were similar: Nothing older than three model years; 2x4 Tunnel-Ram style intake with carburetors and gasoline only; and an across the board, 7 pounds per cubic inch weight limit.  Line ‘em up and run ‘em off a dead-even ‘Tree.  Performance levels were high nine-second ET’s and 135+ mph, and of course, the fans loved them. 

Chevy stalwart Bill Jenkins had run numerous “Heads Up” races and came out on top in early 1970, taking the NHRA Winternationals and the Gatornationals in March.  S&M quickly caught up and completely dominated the rest of the season.  This included a “team win” by Herb McCandless in the Sox & Martin Plymouth Hemi Duster at the Nationals.  S&M won every NHRA event the remainder of ’70 and then in 1971 won all the way to mid-year, when they lost at the NHRA Summernationals in Englishtown, New Jersey.  S&M wasn’t outrun at that race, but fell to an untimely flat tire suffered in the staging lanes!   

Unfortunately, the ’68 Barracuda wasn’t the focus of the S&M 1970 Pro Stock program.   Instead, they began 1970 with a brand new, purpose-built ’70 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda coupe and a Number Two car, a 426 Hemi Duster.  Chrysler wanted to race what it was selling, and that meant ‘Cudas (Plymouth shortened the brand name to ‘Cuda instead of Barracuda) and Dusters.  S&M’s domination had the “have not’s” howling for rules that took away the Hemi engine’s advantage.  NHRA’s “Hemi solution” came in the form of added weight for any Hemi powered Pro Stock.  Whenever a Hemi car won a major event it seemed that NHRA rules officials added weight to the minimum assigned to the Hemi racers.  The 426 Hemi powered cars gave away more and more until they were no longer competitive.

By the mid 1970’s Chrysler was concerned enough that they scaled back their drag racing programs.  Not long after, Ronnie Sox and Buddy Martin dissolved their long standing association.  For a time Sox continued to field a familiar red, white and blue, Hemi powered Pro Stocker.  First there was a Dodge Colt and later a Plymouth Omni.  Ronnie briefly “jumped ship” when he drove Dean Thompson’s Ford Mustang to a 1981 IHRA Pro Stock championship with power provided by a Jack Roush engine.

Sox and Martin teamed briefly in 1995 running an IHRA Ford Probe with an 815”, Jon Kaase engine.  Sox’s season was cut short by a nasty crash that totaled the car and nearly cost Sox his life.  After recuperating he confined his efforts mainly to his personal ’68 Hemi Barracuda and by driving Bob Reed’s Sox & Martin clone SS/A, stick-shift Barracuda.  In this car Sox clocked high eight second, 152+ mph times, thrilling crowds and bringing the fans to the fences to watch and listen to Sox “hit the gears”.

iscussions among knowledgeable, accomplished fellow racers and fans have confirmed that when it came to shifting a four-speed, Ronnie Sox had no equal.  Anyone who witnessed one of his perfectly executed runs would agree.

Ronnie and his wife Diane were on hand for last October’s 2005 East Coast Drag Times Hall of Fame weekend in Henderson, NC.  It was obvious he was in considerable discomfort and weakened, but like the true drag racing trooper he was, Sox came out to again see the fans and enjoy bench racing old memories with fellow Hall of Fame members.  Tragically, the living legend of Ronnie Sox passed from us forever on Saturday, April 22, 2006.  His legacy as an inaugural inductee and active member of the East Coast Drag Times Hall of Fame will remain as long as there are fans who love to see two fast cars line up to decide which is fastest. 

So long “Mr. Four-Speed”, Ronnie Sox.  God Speed your journey.