For the first couple months of Del Cox’s Top Fuel career, he was referred to as “the guy driving Spencer Massey’s old ride.”

Not any more.

Cox broke out of Massey’s shadow in a big way Sunday afternoon, blazing past Bruce Litton (Indianapolis, Ind.) in the Top Fuel finals Sunday afternoon to record his first career victory in only his second ever IHRA race in the Mitch King backed dragster.

“It is a dream come true. I can’t believe it has happened,” Cox said. “None of this would have been possible without my whole crew. Paul Smith, Mitch King, grandpa, all of my sponsors, everybody, it is unreal.”

Cox beat Litton to the line with both cars smoking the tires at mid-track, finishing on a 5.049 elapsed time at 284.21 miles per hour, beating out Litton’s 5.365 lap at 253.61 mph.

“Litton is an awesome guy, he is a legend in the IHRA and it is an honor to race with him and it feels awesome to beat him,” Cox said. “That thing was smoking at mid-track. Bruce was out front, probably by half a car and we just started pulling up on him and my heart dropped about five times going down the track. That is when I started screaming and pulled the chutes.”

The victory capped a great weekend for the Downey, Calif. native. Cox put down the fastest lap of the weekend to grab the No. 1 qualifying position, his second straight, and knocked off Terry McMillen and Terry Haddock to reach the finals.

“It is unreal. We had the car to win at Baton Rouge and I don’t want to bite my tongue, but that is what we came here to do. We come to every race to win and we are going to go do it again in Dallas,” Cox added.

Two unbelievable races propelled Litton and Cox into the finals.

Litton was up first, matching up against No. 7 qualifier Mitch King who reached the semis with a stunning upset of Bobby Lagana Jr. in the first round. King was anxious to make it two in a row with a slight jump on the line, but Litton chased him down and beat him to the line on a 4.835 pass at 297.81 mph to King’s 4.885 run at 282.30 mph.

Cox knocked off 2008 Nitro Funny Car champ Terry Haddock in another spectacular race as Cox nipped Haddock at the line with a 4.835 time at 304.53 mph to Haddock’s 4.953 pass at 231.16 mph.

In quarter-final action Cox knocked off Terry McMillen, Haddock blazed past Paul Lee, King defeated Bobby Lagana Jr. and Litton defeated Tim Boychuk.

It was a rough opening round for the Twilight Zone racing team of Lagana and Lee who placed both of their dragsters in the top five in qualifying, but never saw the win light come on during eliminations.

Boychuk and McMillen, combining for three wins and seven final round appearances last season, also struggled over the weekend and have yet to capture a round win so far this year.

With two straight final round appearances, Litton remains on top of the Top Fuel point standings with 204 points. Cox has moved up to second (202) followed by Lagana (132), Haddock (127) and Lee (123).  

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