SOLO SHOTS

"THE BUTCH" IS BACK or RONNIE GETS "SOX-ed" ... almost

(DRO file photo)

5/5/05

hen I think of great single heats that I've witnessed, I have to admit that Pro Stock is one of the last categories I think of (I know ... never end a sentence with a preposition ... leave that bromide for the school marms. Do you understand it? Great, mission accomplished and not in the fashion of "Little Lord Fauntleroy" and his slapnuts coterie of sycophants).

Overwhelmingly, nitro defines the classes that light me up, yet there was one gas and carburetors race that really sticks in my craw that occurred in Pro Stock at the 1971 NHRA Supernationals hosted at Ontario Motor Speedway in southern California, drag racing's original Taj Mahal.

It didn't take long to realize that despite the surface populism, 40 acres and a mule for all competitors, the cream rose to the top in this class fairly quickly. Ronnie Sox was the dominant racer of 1970, walloping all comers and winning the 1971 NHRA and AHRA World Pro Stock Championship with Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins, Sox teammate Herb McCandless, Don Nicholson, and Dick Landy trailing in the distance.

It was with that aura as a backdrop that Sox came into the 1971 Supernationals at Ontario. All the usual suspects were in attendance, probably 30 to 35 in all, with a number of these being fodder and from the West Coats. For a number of us, who really thought we had a handle on Pro Stock, our faith rested on Landy, Bagshaw, and former Californian Nicholson for slowing this downhill Godzilla. Those guys, and a brash 27-year-old from Tulare, CA, named Larry "Butch" Leal.

Leal oozed self-confidence. At the age of 17, he was running and winning Super Stock races in California with a Chevy Impala and later a Ford Thunderbolt. Over the next few years in Plymouths, he was a class winner at the NHRA Winternationals and Bakersfield, and a winner of numerous west coast match race titles plus the eventual 1971 NHRA Pacific Division World Championship Series champ.

Dro file photo

Confidence or not, Ronnie Sox had the way better numbers when compared to his California adversary. In that season, the Sox & Martin Barracuda had won the first three NHRA titles of the year, the Winternationals, Gatornationals, and the Dallas Springnationals, and then closed out with the Pro Stock trophies at the Le Grandnational Molson and the Indy Nationals.