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.

The 38th annual IHRA Spring Nationals at Rockingham Dragway crowned three first time winners on Sunday.
 
Del Cox (Top Fuel), Tim Tindle (Pro Mod) and Cary Goforth (Pro Stock)
all picked up their first career IHRA victories over the weekend at the
38th annual Spring Nationals at Rockingham Dragway.

Cox drove 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.”

Point standings (top 10) for IHRA professional categories following
the IHRA Spring Nationals presented by Advance Auto Parts and Castrol
at Rockingham Dragway, the second of 10 events in the 2009 Nitro Jam
Drag Racing Series -

Final round-by-round results from the IHRA Spring Nationals
presented by Advance Auto Parts and Castrol at Rockingham Dragway, the
second of 10 events in the 2009 Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series:

Sunday's final results from the IHRA Spring Nationals presented by
Advance Auto Parts and Castrol at Rockingham Dragway. The race is the
second of 10 in the 2009 Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series:

First-round pairings for professional eliminations Sunday for the IHRA
Spring Nationals presented by Advance Auto Parts and Castrol at
Rockingham Dragway, the second of 10 events in the 2009 Nitro Jam Drag
Racing Series.  Pairings based on results in qualifying, which ended
Saturday.

Jack Beckman crashed Friday evening during a nostalgia Funny Car match
race at Sacramento Raceway. Beckman was driving Lee Jennings’ American Revolution Camaro when the
classic flopper got loose, impacted the guard wall and did a slow roll. Mark King of Nostalgia Funny Car news captured this photo sequence.

Del Cox Jr. was given explicit
instructions by veteran crew chief Paul Smith prior to his Saturday
night Top Fuel qualifying run during the 38th annual IHRA Spring
Nationals at Rockingham Dragway.

“He told me, ‘If you feel anything … lift,” Cox explained to a gathered
group of the media in a post-qualifying press conference.

“But the thing is going to be a rocket ship,” Cox explained, quoting Smith.

Knowing their radio transmissions had been spotty all weekend Cox asked
his crew chief just to yell if something out of the ordinary happened.

Defending Pro Modified World Champion Kenny Lang (Grande Pointe,
Manitoba) showed why he is the world champion by
knocking North Carolina’s own Smith (King, N.C.) from the top of the
charts with a blazing 5.960 elapsed time at 239.48 miles per hour to
take the No. 1 qualifying spot in Pro Mod during Saturday’s Castrol
“Night of Fire” qualifying at Rockingham Dragway's IHRA Spring Nationals.

“Those nitrous guys are definitely fast. Rickie is running really quick
so just to get close to that and be quicker was a good accomplishment
and we are happy with that,” Lang said. “We hurt the clutch in the run
before that so we had to take the clutch out and service it before our
run. We had to tune it up a little bit.

John Montecalvo has a keen sense of
memory but Saturday evening’s top qualifying run at the IHRA Spring
Nationals threw him a curve.

“I can’t remember the last time we were number one,” Montecalvo said.
“We’ve always been a top three runner. We just couldn’t get the No. 1
spot. Tonight we did everything perfect. I didn’t see that there was
much we could improve on.”