How One Driver Killed the Stick Shift Era The Ronnie Sox Story

Ronnie Sox was so good at power-shifting a four-speed manual transmission that the NHRA admitted on the record they had to rewrite the rulebook to give the rest of the field a fighting chance. Between 1970 and 1971 he and his partner Buddy Martin won twelve of fifteen NHRA Pro Stock finals with their Hemi-powered Plymouths and took championships across three sanctioning bodies. Nobody could touch them. So the rules changed. And when the Lenco clutchless transmission arrived in 1973 and every car in the class picked up a tenth the data told the final part of the story. Ronnie Sox was the only driver whose car ran slower without him doing the shifting. By four hundredths of a second. This is the full story of Sox and Martin from a Burlington North Carolina filling station to the most famous team in drag racing history. The factory Hemi wars the rivalry with Bill Jenkins the 1972 weight-break rules controversy the death of the four-speed Pro Stock era and the quiet legacy that carries on today through surviving cars a renamed race at Indy and a foundation his widow still runs in his name. If you know Pro Stock you know this story matters. If you don't this is where to start. RonnieSox #SoxAndMartin #ProStock #DragRacing #MrFourSpeed #426Hemi #NHRAHistory #PlymouthCuda #MoparOrNoCar #BillJenkins #HemiChallenge #DragRacingHistory #BurnsoutSociety #ClassicDragRacing #MuscleCar