Jay Cox wasn’t 100% sure what he was getting himself into when he converted his Butner Construction “Pumpkin” ’69 Camaro Pro Nitrous car over to a twin-turbocharged combination, but after debuting the new combo at the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals presented by Motion Raceworks, Cox is fully convinced he made the right move. From the performance and driving experience to the ease of maintenance, Cox was thoroughly impressed with the newly turbocharged “Pumpkin” in the first race of the Drag Illustrated Winter Series presented by J&A Service at Bradenton Motorsports Park.
Cox retired from driving at the end of the 2023 season after competing in PDRA Pro Nitrous for 10 years and local series for years before that. His father, Lloyd, missed their racing adventures, though, so Cox started plotting a return. Conversations with longtime friend Mark Micke of M&M Transmission led Cox to make the move to a twin-turbo, Pro Line Hemi combination. The announcement of the DI Winter Series, a three-race Pro Mod series at Bradenton contested over the winter, provided Cox with a place to race that wouldn’t interfere with his young son’s baseball program.
The Snowbirds in early December marked Cox’s return to the driver’s seat, with the North Carolina native getting acquainted with the turbo combo during pre-race testing earlier in the week. It didn’t take long for Cox to realize why Micke convinced him to make the switch.
“Somebody who’s not going to race a lot like me, when I’m there, I just want to have fun, and man, that thing is a blast to drive,” Cox said. “Mark Micke did a heck of a job as far as tuning it. It’s pretty maintenance-free. We’d run that thing, come back, set it on ProJacks and hang out. And that’s what I need. It’s me and my dad and Doug [Askew]. We’re just there to have fun. I’m very competitive and want to win, and in the moment I’m doing everything I can to win, but staying up all night laying on my back putting pistons and rods and rings in, that’s for the birds, man.”
While the turbo combo made things easier in the pits, the same wasn’t necessarily true on the driving side. That part came with a learning curve for Cox, who had only ever previously driven nitrous cars. With the twin turbos providing the added power, Cox now crosses the eighth-mile mark 10-15 MPH faster than he would in his nitrous car.
“It’s a handful to drive one of those turbo cars,” Cox said. “Everybody says it leaves easy, but it’s going .950s and .960s 60-foot. It’s not like it’s leaving out that easy. But when the power starts really coming in on that thing, you’ve gotta have it straight. You have to know where you’re at on the racetrack and you’ve gotta have it straight. When it runs 220 MPH, it is covering some ground in high gear. You’re 30-40 feet further than you think you are. You really have to be aware and know where you’re at with that car.”
Cox got the full turbo Pro Mod experience, complete with half-track power wheelies and everything. He also set top speed of the event with his 220.19 MPH pass in qualifying. He qualified No. 18 in the quickest 32-car field in Pro Mod history with his 3.626-second best. Cox made it through the unpredictable first round of eliminations when his former Pro Nitrous rival, two-time and reigning PDRA Pro Boost world champion Jason Harris, went red by .006, then fell to Florida’s own Jerico Balduf in the second round.
The first outing exceeded Cox’s expectations, and he attributes that to Micke’s guidance throughout the process.
“I know race cars, as far as four-link, shocks, weight, and when I sit in a race car, I know what they’re supposed to feel like, but Mark Micke deserves all the credit for it,” Cox said. “He’s really got a handle on these turbo deals and he really understands them and knows what to do. He made it very easy for me, somebody who’s never been in a turbo car. He made the transition easy. It took a little bit to get the routine of the burnout just because these cars don’t have any power when they do a burnout. Mark kept praising me how good I drove, but he made it very easy for me.”
The overall competition level at the Snowbirds also exceeded Cox’s expectations. He knew it would take a competitive package to qualify well and go rounds on race day, but he was impressed with the field that assembled for the opening race of the DI Winter Series. Micke qualified No. 1 with a 3.591 and No. 32 qualifier Bob Glenn ran a 3.647 to take the bump spot. Another 18 cars outside the top 32 ran in the 3.60s.
“I’ve only been out of racing for a year, and you think that doesn’t sound like that long, but the competition has really stepped up in that time,” Cox said. “It used to be when we went to one of these deals and there’d be 50 cars, there was 10 or 12 guys that you knew were going to be there at the end of the day. Man, there was 65 cars there and there was 40 of them that were all within two or three hundredths of each other. That speaks volumes. Wes [Buck] and Victor [Alvarez] and everyone at DI put together probably the best racers in the world, hands down, in my opinion.”
With the Snowbirds in the books, Cox now turns his attention to the other two races in the DI Winter Series, the U.S. Street Nationals presented by M&M Transmission Jan. 23-26 and the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod Feb. 27-March 1. He’s doing everything he can to ensure his Butner Construction team has the best possible chance of going rounds on race day.
“It really opened my eyes,” Cox said of the competition at the Snowbirds. “I pulled my practice tree out when I got home and I took hits off that thing every single night and every single morning. You can have a fast race car, but you better leave the line first down there if you’re going to win anything.”
To learn more about the DI Winter Series, visit www.TheWinterSeries.com.
This story was originally published on January 3, 2025. 
The post Jay Cox Weighs In On First Turbo Pro Mod Experience at Snowbirds first appeared on Drag Illustrated.