Former Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle and veteran drag racing car owner Fletcher Cox retired from the National Football League following the 2023-24 season, and now he’s ready to step into the next competitive phase of his life by climbing behind the wheel of one of his race cars.

The 34-year-old on Tuesday made public his plan to debut in the PDRA Pro Street category at the upcoming Mid-Atlantic Showdown at the Virginia Motorsports Park, driving his nitrous oxide-injected 1969 Chevrolet Camaro.

Cox, who was an All-American at Mississippi State, was drafted by the Eagles in 2012. He went on to earn All-Pro honors four times, along with a spot on the NFL’s 2010s All-Decade Team, was named to six Pro Bowls, and earned a Super Bowl title over Tom Brady’s New England Patriots in 2018. He formally retired from the game on March 10, 2024, and it is widely thought amongst fans that the Eagles will retire his jersey number 91 for his long-standing contributions to the franchise.

During his young, formative years, Cox’s older brother would take him to Junkyard #1 Speedway in Canton, Mississippi to watch racing and learn about the sport. As a teenager, he possessed grand visions of becoming deeply invested in racing, and his parents entrusted him with his first muscle car, a 1999 Pontiac Trans Am. “I think it was a pretty amazing thing that my family trusted me in a sports car at that age,” Fletcher noted.

While dominant on the gridiron, his love was still drag racing, and he’d make regular trips home through college to go racing and toil with his brother’s Fox Body Mustang, known as “Gold Dust.” They also later rebuilt the Trans Am together. His racing got more serious in the mid-2010’s, as he got into grudge competition, and later categories such as X275, Limited Drag Radial, Pro 275, Radial vs The World, and Pro Modified, with a series of ever-more advanced cars driven by a roster of good friends and qualified pilots.

But now, without the pressures of off-season preparations and conditioning as a world-class football player, he’s now able to suit up himself and invest fully in drag racing.