{"id":100673,"date":"2025-05-13T14:18:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T14:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/dj-cox-wins-15000-cecil-county-shootout-in-top-alcohol-dragster-debut\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T14:18:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T14:18:23","slug":"dj-cox-wins-15000-cecil-county-shootout-in-top-alcohol-dragster-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/dj-cox-wins-15000-cecil-county-shootout-in-top-alcohol-dragster-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"DJ Cox Wins $15,000 Cecil County Shootout in Top Alcohol Dragster Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Cecil County Dragway announced it would host a $15,000-to-win Top Alcohol Dragster Shootout over Mother\u2019s Day weekend, multi-time NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car winner DJ Cox knew he wanted to be a part of it. The Maryland native didn\u2019t exactly have a clear path there, though, as he didn\u2019t have a Top Alcohol Dragster nor the license to drive one. But in the days leading up to the race, all that changed and Cox turned a last-minute opportunity into one memorable weekend at the track where he grew up bracket racing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

About a week before the race, Cox got a call from Tom Fox with an offer to drive his blown alcohol dragster at the Cecil County Top Alcohol Dragster Shootout held during the May edition of the track\u2019s Strange Engineering Outlaw Street Car Shootout. Cox brought up the whole \u201cno license\u201d issue, but Fox said he could complete his crossover license runs during pre-race testing. The plan was coming together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Weather threatened that plan, though, as rain on Friday pushed the schedule back, leaving Cox with just two test sessions and two qualifying sessions on Saturday to complete his one moderate pass and two full passes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Cox clocked a .900 60-foot time on his moderate pass, then the car split a burst panel on what was to be his first full run. He made his final licensing pass in the first qualifying session, posting a 5.37 at 220 MPH after lifting off the throttle early.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no experience in the car before this weekend,\u201d Cox said. \u201cThe car sort of made a hard move towards the wall and I tried to drive a dragster like a Funny Car. The hardest part for me to drive a dragster was\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0driving it. It was definitely not the way I typically would want to do things, pushing it that hard trying to make license runs, but it worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the final qualifying session, Cox laid down a 5.252-second pass at 272.61 MPH to qualify No. 5 out of 13 cars for Sunday eliminations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I made one clean run in the car, at that point, you kind of got the processes down,\u201d Cox said. \u201cYou sort of understand what the car wants. I was pretty confident. Going into Sunday, it doesn\u2019t matter at that point whether in a Funny Car or dragster, it\u2019s just back to your normal deal. I had my crew there, which was big. Tom had his guys there, but then I had my bottom end guys, my top end guy, so it was just like a normal race day at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox was set to face Dan Dietrich, who walked away from a crash in qualifying and couldn\u2019t make the call for first round, so Cox took the tree and went on to race Earl Nichols in the second round. Nichols set low E.T. of the opening round, a 5.16, but his performance slowed while Cox\u2019s picked up. Cox left first and posted a 5.289 at 272.12 to beat Nichols\u2019 5.26 on a holeshot. Another A\/Fuel hitter was waiting in the semifinals. Jackie Fricke, who lowered the track record to a 5.135 when she qualified No. 1, had lane choice with her 5.195 from the second round. Again, Cox left first and stepped up to a 5.259 at 273.39 to get the win, while Fricke slowed to a 5.351 at 270.21.<\/p>\n

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Cox\u2019s second-round win over Earl Nichols<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cJackie and I have known each other since we were teenagers and we bracket raced together at Cecil County Dragway,\u201d Cox said. \u201cBack when I was 16 years old, I was racing with Jackie every single weekend in 7-second dragsters at Cecil County Dragway, and we always laugh and joke about it and it was just cool to get to line up next to her and race her. Jackie is a fierce competitor, but she was as excited at the finish line for me as I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suddenly, Cox was going to the final round in his Top Alcohol Dragster debut. With nitro-injected cars laying down passes in the 5.10s in qualifying \u2013 Randy Meyer Racing teammates Gary Pritchett and Megan Meyer qualified No. 2 and 3 with a 5.157 and 5.191, respectively \u2013 it was safe to assume the A\/Fuel cars would rule race day too, but Cox and the father-son Fox duo had their own plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw the big numbers in qualifying but we knew the track was going to get hotter as the day went on,\u201d Cox said. \u201cSo me and Tom Jr. and Tom Sr. talked about it in the morning and said we\u2019ll just try to make a consistent race car and not try to chase anybody. Make it go down the track A-to-B every run and just race the track instead of the car in the other lane.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan worked. Cox\u2019s opponent in the final round was Pritchett, who had lane choice thanks to his 5.179 in the semis. Cox was away first with a .024 reaction time to Pritchett\u2019s .036. Pritchett was considerably quicker to the 60-foot mark, but Cox\u2019s blown machine charged harder to the finish line, winning with a 5.301 at 272.34 to Pritchett\u2019s 5.478 at 272.56. It was a fitting final round between two local racers who went on to build successful careers in the sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Runner-up Gary Pritchett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cGary and I grew up together match racing Funny Cars on the East Coast, him with Bunny [Burkett] and me with my dad,\u201d Cox said. \u201cWe grew up at racetracks together and we\u2019re pretty close. The fact that it was both of us hometown guys racing in the final was cool.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get the win, I couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d Cox continued. \u201cI asked [the crew] if the car drifted towards the wall because all I could do was just focus on the win light, trying to see if it was gonna pop up on the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for his future in Top Alcohol Dragster, Cox joked in his post-race Facebook post that \u201cthe plan is to retire on top.\u201d His Top Alcohol Funny Car is also parked for the time being as he focuses on growing the family construction business. Until that hiatus comes to an end, he\u2019ll have the memories of this Cecil County win \u2013 his fourth consecutive when counting TAFC victories \u2013 to hold him over.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just thankful to Tom, Tom Jr., and their whole crew,\u201d said Cox, who also thanked wife Melissa for encouraging him to jump at the opportunity. \u201cThankful for my guys to just be able to come back out and put the band back together on such short notice. It was just cool to be able to get that win for my parents and my mom on Mother\u2019s Day. That was pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Thanks to Brian Lohnes, who was called in to announce the race, for posting results throughout the weekend. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This story was originally published on May 13, 2025. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post DJ Cox Wins $15,000 Cecil County Shootout in Top Alcohol Dragster Debut<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Cecil County Dragway announced it would host a $15,000-to-win Top Alcohol Dragster Shootout over Mother\u2019s Day weekend, multi-time NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car winner DJ Cox knew he wanted to be a part of it. The Maryland native didn\u2019t exactly have a clear path there, though, as he didn\u2019t have a Top Alcohol Dragster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}