Ronnie Sox

I went to the U.S. Nationals every year from 1970 through 1975. S & M were my favorites so I took pictures of them whenever I could. It's true, you could walk right up to the cars and check them out parked on the grass. So i have 35mm pix of them in the "pits" around the cars. I remember when Landy kept a towel over his engine to hide the new 16 plug Hemi heads as he was the first to use them. Of course I was too intimidated to actually talk to these gods. Later I sent $3 or $5 to them and they sent me a S & M T-shirt and stickers that I still have. (the shirt is a medium and it's kind of yellowed but it's original) In 1970, Herb won the Pro stock race at Indy after Grumpy's rear wheel and slick came off after his burnout. I have a pic of his car with one side laying on the track. Back then there were only 4, then 5 National races the whole year and they were dominant. So dominant, NHRA (Wally Parks) legislated them right out of competition. I remember hangin around their car at the 70 Nats and Ronnie comes rolling up in some car I had never seen before, ever. It was a 1971 Tor-red Road Runner and I have pix of that too. Back then there was no internet or spy photos so it was shocking to see that car for the first time on Labor day. Ronnie seemed to be pretty friendly with Linda Hurst as she came around pretty often. Not suggestin', just sayin'. In the evenings my buddy and I would cruise around to the local motels until we found where they were staying. All the cars would just be parked in the lots on their trailers with car guys milling about. One night, Jake had the 70 cuda halfway up the ramps of the trailer/truck and he was lying on the ground under the engine. So I crawled under there, laid on my back, and silently watched as he pulled the rod caps off checking the bearings. Jake was the silent hero as S & M were probably off at a party somewhere while there he was, checking the Hemi out for the next day. One night we watched a Fuel Dragster "team" rebuilding their Hemi in a local gas station bay. We thought that was pretty amazing. They didn't rebuild their motors between rounds back then, just changed the oil and plugs once in a while.

There was always a hotel parking lot back then where the car crews would have mini bike drag races in the parking lot. After a couple years they had a portable Christmas tree and some of the bikes were running nitro. You could hear the extra POP in the exhaust and smell the fumes.

Much later, in the 80's or so, I got autographs from Ronnie, Buddy, Landy, and Herb. I've also met Ronnie's wife and I'm sure she remembers me...NOT! I went to the Hemi reunion at Quaker City a few years ago and took 779 pictures in a single day.(my personal record) That was the best Mopar event I've been to in my life and I've been doing this a long time. I think I only missed 2 Mopar Nats so far. The Herb McCandless Dart (built by S&M and shown above) was the first car to use the latest wider tires. First time out he pulled a legendary and very famous wheelstand. He talked about it at the reunion. He had just gotten some heart work done a few days earlier and his doctor said he had to take it easy for awhile. Herb said I have to go to Ohio in a few days and the doc said Absolutely Not! Herb said I HAVE to go. Finally the doc Googled Herb McCandless and found out who he really was and made an exception but he had to promise to take it easy. His wife and son were keeping a close eye on him. He was talking to someone about some Mopar guy and he whipped out an old, large, dog-eared address book and gave the guy someone's phone number. Man that book was 40 years old and it was just full of history, business cards, scraps of paper, etc. Every contact he ever had in the car world has to be in there.

I'll have to dig out some pix and scan them. But Ronnie is the biggest reason I do this. My dad always had Mopars and I came home from the hospital in my dad's Plymouth convertible so I'm hooked.