What once was forbidden is about to become a big part of young Rickie Jones’ life.

As the son of professional chassis builder Rick Jones, Jones literally grew up in the Pro Stock arena, most recently competing as a driver in the elite NHRA division. He plans, however, on mounting an ADRL Pro Nitrous effort next season and looks forward to learning all about the properties and mysteries of nitrous oxide, the absolutely verboten power booster to the naturally aspirated Pro Stock crowd.

“I think it’s a really cool class,” the 23-year-old driver says of Pro Nitrous. “I mean the cars are really fast, they’re lightweight and it’s just really fun to watch. It’s got to be fun on the inside, going that fast with all that power. The last couple of ADRL races I got to drive Mark Martino’s mountain-motor Pro Stock car and even though it was only eighth-mile (racing), I could feel that car pulling harder than what I’ve driven before and it showed me a little, I think, about what the Pro Mod car could be like.”

Practical business concerns prompted the switch, too, the elder Jones explained.

What once was forbidden is about to become a big part of young Rickie Jones’ life.

As the son of professional chassis builder Rick Jones, Jones literally grew up in the Pro Stock arena, most recently competing as a driver in the elite NHRA division. He plans, however, on mounting an ADRL Pro Nitrous effort next season and looks forward to learning all about the properties and mysteries of nitrous oxide, the absolutely verboten power booster to the naturally aspirated Pro Stock crowd.

“I think it’s a really cool class,” the 23-year-old driver says of Pro Nitrous. “I mean the cars are really fast, they’re lightweight and it’s just really fun to watch. It’s got to be fun on the inside, going that fast with all that power. The last couple of ADRL races I got to drive Mark Martino’s mountain-motor Pro Stock car and even though it was only eighth-mile (racing), I could feel that car pulling harder than what I’ve driven before and it showed me a little, I think, about what the Pro Mod car could be like.”

Practical business concerns prompted the switch, too, the elder Jones explained.

“We are looking to do this as a means of building new Pro Modified cars,” he says. “I feel once we race the class and begin to build cars for this style of racing, we’ll be able to build a better car for our customers. It’s something new and exciting for us.”

Though well known for providing Pro Stock rides to the likes of Warren Johnson, Bruce Allen, Greg Anderson and Allen Johnson over the years, RJ Race Cars is no stranger to Pro Mod construction either, having built cars for Scotty Cannon and Jason Scruggs in the 1990s and more recently the speed record-holding ’68 Camaro of NHRA Pro Mod star Brad Personett.

What’s different this time, though, is the freedom provided by the ADRL’s minimal rule book for its Pro Nitrous, Pro Extreme and Outlaw 10.5 doorslammer classes.

“In building these cars it’s fun to do a lot of new design work and incorporate lightweight components,” Jones says. “It’s fun for us to innovate and my dad and everybody here at the shop have been working really hard to try and get something new.”

The first of the new cars heading out of the RJ shop in Galesburg, Illinois, will be a ’69 Camaro destined for the hands of Pro Nitrous legend Shannon Jenkins. A similar car has already been started for Jones, too, and he says he hopes to be out testing in it before the year is over. Both cars will run with Reher-Morrison powerplants and Speedtech Nitrous under their hoods.  

“I’m excited to learn about nitrous and how all that works because us Pro Stock guys are pretty much dumb about all that kind of stuff. I’ve already had some conversations with Shannon and David about the plumbing and technology and how things are done and I just find it all to be really cool and interesting,” he says. “And over there you can also run fuel injection if you want and I’m kind of interested in that, too.”

Jones says a long-standing professional relationship between his father and Reher should be nothing but a plus, as well.

“My dad has known David for a long time when they used to race NHRA Pro Stock with Bruce Allen and we built cars for them and won races and did very well while at the same time my dad was racing Pro Stock Trucks and we were using engines from them. So it’s been a little while since we’ve worked together, but when we did in the past everything was very good,” he explained.

“They (R-M) are very competitive and hopefully we’ll be able to come out and have a good starting point. David is a real stand-up guy and he builds some really great engines for Shannon and Mike Castellana and a lot of the other Pro Nitrous cars, so we’re very confident in that aspect.”

Jones will also be paired with team co-owner and sponsor Monty Bailey of Bailey Trucking as well as the advantage of bringing longtime sponsors Lucas Oil, Strange Engineering, Summit Racing Equipment and RacingJunk.com along for the ride into unexplored territory.

“All of the guys that have been with our program for years are excited about us doing something different and reaching out to a new market,” he says. “This is an exciting time for all of us.”

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