Fletcher Cox Purchases PDR Mustang, Tabs Shawn Ayers As Driver

A few months ago, professional NFL football star Fletcher Cox splashed onto the scene in drag radial racing with his immaculate 1969 Chevrolet Camaro powered by a nitrous oxide-huffing big-block running in X275. As the nitrous combination began to step up and be more competitive in X275 competition, Cox began looking for something a little faster. At the time, No Mercy VI was right around the corner and all of the world’s quickest and fastest hot rods were going to be joined together in one place to throw down for radial supremacy.

After the South Georgia race concluded, Cox had his eye on a few different hot rods including a certain twin turbocharged Ford Mustang that had just blasted into the 3-second zone and set the mile per hour world record of 204.91 miles per hour. Fletcher picked up the phone, did some negotiating, and a few days later, was the proud new owner of the Pro Drag Radial/Radial vs. The World Ford Mustang previously owned and campaigned by Andrew Alepa and driven by a host of drivers, including Frankie Taylor and Daniel Pharris.

Moving up from X275 to Pro Drag Radial is going to be a huge step for me as a driver. This thing pulls extremely hard on the top end where the X275 cars have all the power in within the first 200 feet. – Shawn Ayers

After the crew picked up the new car and brought it back to Mississippi, Cox had the car taken directly to the paint booth and added a sleek layer of blue to change it up and make the car his own. After putting the record-holding car back together after the paint work, Cox made the call to put X275 kingpin Shawn Ayers into the driver’s seat of the newest addition to the Cox Racing fleet.

The crew took the car over to Memphis International Raceway for a quick private test session before loading the stacker and heading to one of the final radial races of the year, the Radial Fest at Huntsville Dragway.

Ayers climbed in the seat after a few mid-track shakedowns and went right to the teens with a 4.19 pass in testing on Thursday afternoon before Radial Fest. Ayers piloted the Fletcher Cox-owned hot rod to a 4.12 to secure the number three qualifying spot and came back to go a 4.10 at 200 mph in round one of eliminations before Mother Nature ended another radial event with rain. In talks with Cox after Radial Fest, he mentioned, “being competitive in racing is always a good thing; it’s no different than football. You can’t show up and expect to automatically be at the top of the heap. It’s going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of effort as a team to stay competitive and get to where we want to be.”

Going into the offseason, Cox has lots of plans to update the newest car in his fleet to make things easier to work on, along with being more consistent week in and week out. Between Cox and Ayers, they’ve assembled a solid team to keep the new Mustang taking steps in the right direction. Fletcher wants to thank Southern Speed Racing and VP Racing Fuels for their support in his racing program moving forward into 2016.