During his long and storied drag racing career, the Burlington, North Carolina, native garnered practically every honor and championship available for the full-bodied drag race cars he loved. His wins included NHRA and IHRA World Championships, and he was nominated as AHRA Driver of the Year in 1968. In 2002, Ronnie was an inaugural inductee into the East Coast Drag Times Hall of Fame, just one of the many honors bestowed upon him during his five-decades-long racing career. in 2001, he was named Number 15 in the Top 50 Drivers poll announced by NHRA .
Ronnie began his drag racing career as a teenager, sneaking into the local drags and racing his dad’s ’49 Oldsmobile Rocket 88. Seeking more speed, he soon switched to a Y-Block 312-powered ’57 Ford. At the time, his family owned the Sox Sinclair Service, a combination Sinclair gas station and repair shop. the family business developed into a high-performance tuning and speed shop operation where young Ronnie gained both knowledge and customers for his rapidly expanding skills. It was out of that service station that he began running Chevy 409-powered cars and gained a reputation as a skilled driver and power tuner. His ’62 409 Chevy “Bubble Top” Bel-Air sedan was a feared competitor in the Optional/Super Stock classes in the Carolinas, orUncharacteristically, Ronnie was late off the line and lost the A/FX class trophy to Bill Shrewsberry, who later gained fame as a driver of the Hurst Hemi Under Glass Barracuda and other exhibition wheelstanders. Stung by the loss, he righted the ship in that Sunday’s Top Stock final eliminations, cleaning house and winning the posted cash ($500), as well as a new Dodge 426 Hemi engine. In those days before huge factory funding, it was usually difficult to make ends meet, so they promptly sold the Hemi engine to help pay for their trip back home tee All 18 Photos
These street missiles featured the heavy-duty Dana 60 rear axle for stick-shift cars or an 831/44 axle for automatics, a heavy-duty New Process four-speed gearbox or 727 Torqueflite automatic, a thoroughly engineered cross-ram intake manifold carrying a pair of Holley four-barrel carburetors, and a gigantic hoodscoop designed to intimidate the competition, as well as ram cold air to the sealed inlets of the carbs. Factory compression ratios for the Race Hemi 426 were quoted as 14.0:1, and the cylinder heads came with sizeable intake and exhaust ports more than capable of allowing the engines to be revved at 8,000-plus rpm. It was a skillful job of total overkill, and an example of the powerful strength of a vehicle company when it chooses to create a winning racing program.
Not only did these cars excel in NHRA Super Stock Eliminator, theySee All 18 Photos were also fast in match race trim. This phenomenon grew out of the Chrysler, Ford, and GM drivers’ dislike for handicap-style racing and disqualifying break outs for going too fast. They preferred heads-up starts and basic run-whatcha-brung rules. Curiously, most of this was a throwback to the early Funny Car days and the Match Race Mania so loved by tracks and fans.
Ronnie Sox and Buddy Martin eventually dissolved their long-standing partnership, but Ronnie continued to field a familiar red, white, and blue, Hemi-powered Pro Stocker. First, it was a Dodge Colt, and, later, a Plymouth Omni. He even drove Dean Thompson’s Ford Mustang to an ’81 IHRA Pro Stock championship with power provided by Jack RouRonnie turned out for last October’s East Coast Drag Times Hall of Fame weekend in Henderson, North Carolina. He reported that his treatments and battle against his cancer were going well, and he was optimistic as to the outcome. Sadly, Ronnie Sox passed from us forever on Saturday, April 22, 2006, but his legacy as a driver, racer, lieablepersonality will endure foreve
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